“T&Cs update” email

Score… 🥁 5/10

Sometimes an email lands slap bang in the middle of the scale.

Not a fist-pumping 11/10, not a gut-wrenching 0/10.

Maybe that’s not interesting to write about. Maybe it’s not interesting to read about.

Or is it?

Shout out to list member Ryan who noticed that these teardowns tend to skew towards the extremes. Guilty as charged!

There is magic to be found in the middle too, it’s just more hard work to dig into, but, well, you’re worth it.

And as luck would have it, the ideal candidate dropped into my inbox a few days ago.

The backstory:

Being secretly a lil old lady, I kept challenger banks at arm’s length for longer than most millennials. Those newfangled brands always seemed so darn cool, and I guess I just didn’t (couldn’t) trust them as much as I trusted the shiny black horses in the ads on the tellybox, who I knew were always there in the stables, tending the bank account I’ve had since I was 15. In the end though I relented and got a challenger account “just for travel” and then a second one “just for freelance work” and now, bam, I’ve been a customer for three years and all my income flows through them. I don’t love this bank. I don’t hate this bank. But they’ve wriggled their way into my life through the back door, and so far I don’t mind them putting their feet up by the fire. I tend to ignore their marketing emails (too high-brow) and open their non-marketing emails (in case there’s been some sort of catastrophe because… y’know… where are their horses?). The email below is one of the latter.

(Sender anonymised to “Xxxx” out of courtesy. Think you know who? Guess away.)

— — — — — Forwarded message — — — — —

Subject: “An update to our terms and conditions”

OK, at least it’s clear.

“Hi Corissa,”

“We recently announced a number of changes, which you might’ve heard about.”

Oh I MIGHT, might I? You tease! Nope… I haven’t heard about any changes. What an odd sentence. All at once, I feel like a loser for being the last to know yet amused by the assumption (ahem, delusion) that customers en masse care enough to go sniffing out company news for themselves. I can’t read into what the line is really trying to say. Do I sense gaslighting? I wonder if we’ll find out?

“As a result we have updated our terms and conditions.”

The mystery continues.

“The notifications about these changes may not have reached you, so we’re writing to you now to bring you fully up to speed, explain the changes and give you notice of a change to our T&Cs.”

Oh, so now the reason for the smoke and mirrors intro reveals itself.

Their notifications MAY not have reached me? What went wrong? How hard did they try? Did they dangle a carrier pigeon out the window by its leg for a second and then change their mind? And why do I get the impression I’m being blamed for this somehow…?

What’s happening here is politician-speak, a refusal to admit wrongdoing or offer an explanation. “MISTAKES WERE MADE”. Except that in this email, the mistakes themselves are also hidden, as well as the identity of whoever made the mistakes. Grrr where is my soapbox.

Picturing the scene…

Copywriter: Can’t we just say what happened?
Manager: No no, let’s just gloss over it and hope nobody notices.

Oops.

On the upside though, the rest of that sentence lays out the job and structure of the email, which is more than you can say of most T&C update emails.

“You can check out a fully up to date set of our T&Cs in the ‘Legal Documentation’ section of our website, but here is a quick rundown of what to expect.”

Now things start looking up. As promised, the email goes on to give a useful summary of the changes, framed from the customer’s perspective. I won’t paste the whole lot because your eyes will glaze over, but to give you a flavour, here’s one chunk I pulled out:

“Mobile cheque deposits
You can now deposit cheques via the Xxxx app, simply by uploading a photo. New features mean new rights and obligations, so we’ve updated our T&Cs to reflect this.”

Nice! Understandably, people tend to expect the worst when it comes to T&Cs. After all, T&Cs are the home of hidden catches. So it’s easy to forget that legalese exists to protect the customer as well as the company to some degree. By framing this particular update in the context of a new feature in the app, this email has given T&Cs a mini and much-needed rebrand.

BUT WAIT.

There’s a plot twist.

Further down the email, I spotted this gem:

“Because we didn’t let you know [about a reduction in interest rates] and haven’t given you a full 60 days notice, we’ll be paying your current interest rates up to 1st July 2020.”

Aha, the mystery of the missing notifications is solved.

— — — — — End — — — — —

Conclusion:

Email Teardown Club score = 5/10

I truly, truly understand the temptation to sweep awkward situations under the carpet. Hard things are hard. And sometimes, too much truth is TMI. And maybe in this instance it just doesn’t matter that much. I mean, the email didn’t send me hunting for a new bank account. It’s just sitting there, neither good nor bad, already fading into the history of forgettable T&Cs updates. RIP.

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*Side note* These teardowns are just my gut reactions as a real life customer, mashed together with my copywriter background, to explore what good and bad messaging looks like outside the sender’s ivory tower. I’m only one person, and I might not be representative. Agree or disagree? Tell me in the comments!

Cheerio,
Corissa

P.S. If you need a hand with your messaging strategy, I can help. I also have a few slots of 121 writing coaching up for grabs. Find out more 👉 corissanunn.com