Topic on Talk:Growth/Communities/How to work with newcomers on help desks/2023

A few thoughts regarding the examples:

• Use lists instead of paragraphs. Not only is this easier to read, but cuts down on the excessive wordiness.
• Dispense with pleasantries. Who are you kidding? They know it isn't a real person in the popup, so just go right into the info.

Thank you for your feedback.

The goal is to establish a first contact and make those newcomers feeling welcomed. Using only lists to reply or avoiding pleasantries will make the message very impersonal, don't you think?

No, it's not impersonal. The way to show newcomers that they are welcome isn't with a faux-personal greeting, it is through the policies, tools, and other mechanisms your team is creating. (Thank you for your work!)

Think of a retail store that has a big welcome banner in the parking lot and a sign saying "customers are #1" at the front door. And yet the floors are dirty, employees are grumpy, and the shelves disorganized. All the word-smithing in the world can't overcome the customer's actual experience. Fake friendliness in online communication is obvious and insincere. For example, sending a message to Google or Facebook, only to receive a one-line reply saying, "Your feedback is very important to us." HA! It just went in a bottomless pit never to been seen again.

An important function in our tools is to provide a direct contact with a real human. The advice listed to help working with newcomers on help desks is to avoid real humans to sound like robots, and not being the employees of the store you depict.