From Error to Understanding: The Importance of Brand Voice When Things Go Wrong
On Monday, a hotly anticipated trading day for the US market, millennial-favored app, Robinhood, crashed and left its 3 million users looking on from the sidelines. Amidst the chaos and communications faux pas, I took interest in the app experience and the all-too-often overlooked error message.
This is the pinnacle of product and brand experience as one. What happens when your product falls short or all out fails? There may be plenty of ways to fix it, but it can rarely be done in real-time. (Please direct any iOS vs. Android debates to the comments ;-)
Tone of Voice Makes All the Difference
In moments like these, the brand voice is more important than ever. A good error message sets clear expectations about what has happened, why it’s happening, and what the user can do about it. Help them feel in control! At a minimum, with a good error message a brand can begin to mend the breach of customer trust; at best, an error message can help to build brand love.
Arguably the best example of this comes from Slack (see below). An error message written in the early days by founder and CEO, Stewart Butterfield, checks every communications box: in a clear and concise way, the user receives an explanation, solution, and apology (with a twinge of humor). It’s rare for an error message to go viral because a company did something right, but a brand’s tone of voice can make all the difference.
In the case of Robinhood, we don’t know exactly what caused the outage. But that doesn’t mean we can’t anticipate how to communicate around major errors like this in the future. For something as significant as a server crash, it’s always worth building in a few thoughtful error messages — while the frequency of the issue may be low, the impact it has can be huge.
Inspired by Robinhood, we thought we’d share a few copy ideas for next time and explore the different ways tone of voice can come to life.
1. The ultimate helper
Proactive. Informative. Resourceful. Action-oriented. Directing the user to a status page (preferably not Twitter) can direct their energy and attention to a more constructive interface.
2. Calm under pressure
Brevity can help minimize how users perceive the situation. A long error message can make something sound more serious than it is or lead to further confusion. In this example, we use an active headline to indicate ongoing troubleshooting. We also slip in a pun (“under the hood”) to communicate this problem is addressable and simply in need of attention.
3. With a wink and a smile
While humor rarely has a place in an error message, it is important to sound positive and forward-looking. We can be upbeat and optimistic without overlooking the severity of the situation.
While an error message can’t solve everything — least of all the error itself — it can be a helpful touch point for customers to feel informed and in control. This is only one application of brand voice and one of the many interfaces when designing for verbal identity.
