As copywriters, we try and push our clients to be real, to have a distinct voice and sound like real people rather than generic, corporate boringness. We don’t always succeed. It’s scary to be real, to be different. It’s much more comfortable to just sound like everyone else. We’ve even had clients flat out say they want their Web site written to sound like a competitor’s. I guess I get it. I mean, I have a teenage son who would hate to stand out from the crowd. I guess when it comes to copywriting and marketing communications, most businesses have a teenage mentality and prefer to blend in. Kind of hard to get noticed that way, in my humble copywriter opinion.

So what a treat I had last week when 37 Signals demonstrated how being real can make a real impression. They had a down day and they were perfectly honest about the problems. They didn’t hide behind any generic, corporate speak, their copywriting said exactly what was happening and expressed their apologies. Below are just a few snippets to give you a taste:

As they announce all systems were offline due to a problem, we users got an explanation and a simple “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

When they located the problem, they stated what it was and said “Again, we're terribly sorry for this disruption of service.”

As the day went along, they kept us users posted. This was my favorite when talking about the technicians working on the problem: “We're breathing down their neck as heavily as we can. And we profusely apologize for this unacceptable interruption of service.”

And finally:  “We should be in the home stretch now. Again, we're incredibly sorry for this disruption. This is not how Fridays are supposed to be.”

There were undoubtedly some customers annoyed that they couldn’t use 37 Signals service that day, but for me, seeing this personal language, this willingness to be honest and apologetic, well, it more than made up for any inconvenience. It made this copywriter’s day.