Clearer, brighter writing

Giving The Diamond Store a brand voice.

24-carat words.

Words are precious to The Diamond Store. As an online business, it relies on the way it writes. Its emails and its web pages are its shop front. Polishing its words until they gleam is a given.

Fantastic customer service has made the Diamond Store the UK’s leading online diamond retailer. But its customer service people aren’t professional writers. Writing consistently and finding the right words to build both satisfaction and sales was proving tricky.

A crystal clear tone.

I worked with Gary Ingram, the Diamond Store’s founder and CEO, to find their tone of voice and give his team the practical writing support they needed. The accent is on “practical”.  Tablets from above weren’t going to cut it.

I created two sets of guidelines: one for tone of voice and the other for business writing, both of which were succinct and straightforward. Too many writing guides are vague and abstract. The Diamond Store’s were packed with re-written examples of their own comms and practical tips about writing in different formats.

Everyday brilliance.

Good tone of voice guidelines are more than a manual. They give a business a point of view and a personality. And they’re written in the style in which the business wants to write. So, far from being left forgotten on a desktop, they become part of everyday life for a business’ writers.  

That is exactly what happened to the guidelines I created for the Diamond Store:

“Andy really hit the mark when he identified the right tone of voice for our business. Ultimately, our web pages and emails must sell our brand and our products to our customer. Our team relies on Andy’s writing guidelines to make sure we achieve that.”

Gary Ingram, CEO.