Cut the corporate claptrap, it annoys and alienates customers, says RUTH SUNDERLAND

Why can’t companies speak correctly? That question was raised at an event for city professionals last week. The panels included Rupert Soames, chairman of the CBI and one of the UK’s most experienced bosses, Lucy Elphinstone, former headteacher of the Francis Holland School in London, and me.

Any article about bad writing is hostage to fortune, so I apologize in advance for my own mistakes. It’s not about pedantry, but about clarity.

We are all bombarded with corporate verbiage, a scourge of modern life. Companies don’t know or care that it annoys and alienates customers.

Companies want to build relationships with customers and their staff, but they don’t seem to realize that unpleasant and impenetrable language is an obstacle and barrier.

It also destroys trust, creating the impression – often correct – that companies use a storm of words to hide harsh practices. Companies use language as a weapon against customers, for example in the fine print that insurers use to avoid paying claims. This is doubly horrible, because people only contact an insurer in times of crisis and stress.

Insurance companies should show empathy, reassure and help their policyholders. Instead, their communications are designed to surprise people. The high-handed attitude is based on your suspicion that all customers are likely to be outright scammers or, at the very least, trying to inflate their claim.

Banks and investment companies tend to be equally bad. Many people feel intimidated when dealing with their lender, especially if they are having financial difficulties. The risks and benefits of investment products are often poorly explained.

There are some exceptions. Online bank Monzo is on a mission to speak plain English and trains staff to do so in lessons called ‘Write a Little Better’.

They have put a great guide on their website with tips such as: use normal words, not formal ones, don’t use jargon, focus on what matters to customers.

Monzo believes it pays to talk to customers as if they were human beings.

Explaining investments in clear, simple terms broadens the market for them. Plain English is profitable.

So why aren’t more companies copying Monzo? The usual response from companies is that they must write obscurely because of legal issues of an arcane nature. But there is no law that requires companies to write gibberish or scatter acronyms like confetti.

I suspect that the real reason companies write poorly is that they are trying to establish superiority and control.

Technical words indicate membership in an elite club to which customers have not been invited. The irony is that, in fact, companies are well aware of the offense that words can cause.

Lloyds Bank’s inclusive language guide, as revealed by the Mail on Sunday yesterday, warns against using the word “widow”.

This is because it could upset widows, even though the bank owns the Scottish Widows insurance company.

The bank indulges this nonsense, while allowing huge amounts of corporate nonsense to rain down on us unchecked.

Bad prose is an unacceptable transfer of effort from the writer to the reader. Instead of making an effort to write clearly, companies force customers to waste time trying to read verbiage.

English is the language of Dickens and Shakespeare. It is also the universal language of business. Yet companies seem determined to squander one of our greatest national assets.