A few years ago, I was on the way to the airport when I got the text every traveler dreads: my flight had been canceled. I’d been on the road for a couple days, and was looking forward to getting home, so this was less than ideal.
To make matters worse, the airline had tried to rebook me, but rather than a direct flight later that day, I’d been rebooked on a connecting flight the next one. Now I was really pissed, so I called customer service to try to fix things.
The agent on the other end of the line was less than helpful. Rather than actually listening, or trying to really understand the problems, they kept walking through what felt like a script. Using stock phrase after stock phrase in an attempt to show they “cared” rather than putting in the work of actually caring.
The kind Uber driver who’d been forced to listen to the conversation offered his condolences, and we ended up striking up a conversation. I mentioned how frustrated I was but also how bad I felt for the customer service representatives who had to deal with everyone’s problems. It wasn’t their fault that the flight had been canceled, yet there they were, fending off angry people like me all day long, one after the other.
It seemed to me like a tough job, but the Uber driver said it was quite the contrary. He mentioned that his daughter worked in customer service for one of the airlines and loved it. In fact, she was so good at making customers happy that the airline had promoted her to teach other agents how to be more effective.
At first, I was surprised. Making customers happy in this context seemed quite difficult. Most callers are dealing with canceled flights, delays, or lost bags, and it wasn’t like the agent could snap their fingers and magically make the problems go away.
But as I thought about it more, I started to wonder: If his daughter was so good at dealing with difficult situations, what was she saying that helped patch things up? Beyond what agents could offer (e.g., a credit or alternate flight), might there be certain ways of communicating that make customers more satisfied?
Beyond what agents could offer (e.g., a credit or alternate flight), might there be certain ways of communicating that make customers more satisfied?
To study that question, Grant Packard and I assembled a data set of hundreds of customer service calls to a big online retailer: someone from Arkansas whose luggage wouldn’t unlock; someone from St. Louis whose shoes were defective; and someone from Sacramento who needed help returning a shirt that didn’t fit.
With the help of a transcription company and a team of research assistants, we turned the recordings into data. We transcribed the calls, separated out what the agent and customer had said, and even measured vocal features such as pitch and tone.
Each customer called for a different reason, but many calls followed a familiar script. The agent introduced themselves, the customer outlined whatever issue they were having, and the agent tried to solve it. Attempting to sort out why the luggage wouldn’t unlock, figuring out what was wrong with the shoes, or helping the customer return the shirt. The agent would look in their system, or chat with a manager, and collect whatever information was needed. Then, after hopefully resolving the issue, they’d explain what they’d found or done, see if the customer had any more questions, and say goodbye.
But while the calls themselves had a similar structure, the outcomes were quite different. Some customers were happy with the service and found the agent quite helpful. Others, not so much. Not surprisingly, part of this was driven by what customers were calling about. Some called about problems with their accounts, and others called about trouble with an order. Some called about bigger issues and others called about smaller ones.
But even controlling for what people called about, customer demographics, and dozens of other factors, how agents talked played an important role. A certain way of speaking boosted customer satisfaction.
And to understand that way of speaking, we have to understand what’s known as linguistic concreteness.
Three ways to apply it are to: (1) make people feel heard, (2) make the abstract concrete, and (3) know when it’s better to be abstract.
A service representative answering a request to find a pair of shoes, for example, could say that they would go look for them, those shoes, or those lime green Nikes. Someone responding to an inquiry about a delivery could say the package will be arriving there, at your place, or at your door. And someone discussing a refund could say, we’ll send you something, a refund, or your money.
In all three examples, the latter versions use more concrete language. Those lime green Nikes is more concrete than them, at your door is more concrete than there, and your money back is more concrete than refund, which is more concrete than something. The words used are more specific, tangible, and real.
These variations might seem like simple turns of phrase, but they had an important impact on how customers felt about the interaction.
Using concrete language significantly increased customer satisfaction. When customer service agents used more concrete language, customers were more satisfied with the interaction and thought the agent had been more helpful.
When customer service agents used more concrete language, customers were more satisfied with the interaction and thought the agent had been more helpful.
And the benefits of linguistic concreteness extended beyond how customers felt. When we analyzed almost a thousand email interactions from a different retailer, we found similar effects on purchase behavior. When employees used more concrete language, customers spent 30 percent more with the retailer in the following weeks.
And it turns out there are other benefits to linguistic concreteness, too.
Using concrete language to present ideas, for example, makes them easier to understand. Similarly, analysis of thousands of tech support pages found that pages that used more concrete language were rated as more helpful. Compared to using more abstract language (e.g., “About the security partial trust allow list”) using more concrete language (e.g., “How to split and move the keyboard” or “Check your battery and charge your watch”) made it easier for readers to understand what the content was about and find it more helpful in resolving their questions.
Concrete language also makes things more memorable. Readers are more likely to remember concrete phrases (e.g., “rusty engine”) and sentences (e.g., “when an airplane blasts down the runway and passengers lurch backward in their seats”) than abstract ones (e.g., “available knowledge” or “moving air will push up against a surface placed at an angle to the airflow”).
Not surprisingly, then, using concrete language has a host of beneficial consequences. It holds people’s attention, encourages support, and drives desired action.
In fact, linguistic concreteness even affects parole board decisions. When prisoners apologize for their actions, those who give more concrete explanations for their transgressions are more likely to be granted parole.
Given all the benefits of concrete language, one question is: Why we don’t use it more often? After all, if concrete language makes things easier to understand, remember, and feel positively toward, why would anyone ever speak or write abstractly?
While concrete language is great for increasing understanding, or for making complex topics easier to comprehend, when it comes to things like describing a company’s growth potential, abstract language is better, because while concrete language focuses on the tangible here and now, abstract language gets into the bigger picture.
Want to help people understand a complex idea, feel heard, or remember what was said? Using concrete language is going to be more effective.
Take Uber, the company best known for its ride-hailing app. When Uber was founded in 2009, it would have been easy to describe the business as exactly that: “A smartphone app that makes it easier to get a taxi, connecting passengers and drivers and reducing wait time.” This description is perfectly accurate and provides a good sense of what the company does. It’s also highly concrete. It uses specific language to help people understand the nature of Uber’s business.
But that’s not the only way Uber could be described. In fact, one of the cofounders actually positioned the company quite differently. He described it as “a transportation solution that is convenient, reliable, and readily accessible to everyone.”
In some ways, the difference might seem minor. Both descriptions give some sense of the general space Uber is in and what it’s trying to do. But while the first description is quite concrete, the way the cofounder actually pitched the business is much more abstract. Rather than focusing on ride hailing per se, which is much narrower in scope, calling Uber a “transportation solution” taps the broader problem Uber is trying to solve.
That, in turn, increased investment because it made the potential market seem much larger. A ride-hailing app? I can think of a few people who might need that or a few situations in which it might be useful.
But a transportation solution? Wow, that seems a lot broader. Lots of people and companies could use something like that, and it seems to have lots of applications.
We’re not just a fintech startup, we’re a solutions provider. We’re not just a device builder, we’re a life improver.
Rather than focusing on one niche, abstract language makes the market seem widespread. And given that larger growth potential, a company seems like a much more promising investment.
Consequently, whether it’s better to use concrete or abstract language depends on the outcome we’re trying to achieve.
If we want people to think our idea has potential, or that we’re a forward-thinking visionary, abstract language is more effective.
Want to help people understand a complex idea, feel heard, or remember what was said? Using concrete language is going to be more effective. Using verbs that focus on actions (e.g., walk, talk, help, or improve), for example, rather than adjectives (e.g., honest, aggressive, or helpful). Talking about physical objects or using evocative language to help them see what we’re saying.
But if we want people to think our idea has potential, or that we’re a forward-thinking visionary, abstract language is more effective.
More generally, when trying to make language either more concrete or more abstract, one helpful approach is to focus on either the how or the why.
Want to be more concrete? Focus on the how. How does a product meet consumer needs? How does a proposed new initiative address an important problem? Thinking about how something is or will be done encourages concreteness. It focuses on the feasibility and helps generate concrete descriptions.
Want to be more abstract? Focus on the why. Why does a product meet consumer needs? Why does a proposed new initiative address an important problem? Thinking about why something is good or right encourages abstractness. It focuses on its desirability and helps generate abstract descriptions.
Excerpted from Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way by Jonah Berger. Published by Harper Business. Copyright © 2023 by Jonah Berger. All rights reserved.
