Case study: HSBC
A tone wasn't built in a day
0 min read, tagged in Consulting, Writing, Training and in Brand & marketing.
When is a tone of voice not a tone of voice? When it's languishing in a virtual drawer, and no one knows how to use it.
HSBC knows that creating tone of voice guidelines is just the beginning
Bringing that tone to life is a long and evolving journey. We've been working with them since 2015 to train their people (more than 54,000 at the last count), write best practice examples – and save them money along the way.
Since then, we've:
- transcreated their guidelines into six languages, working with local linguists to get the spirit of the tone right for each culture
- trained their teams on four continents, in English, French and Spanish, on everything from tone of voice to Covid comms
- Simplified business banking’s terms and conditions (and made friends with compliance)
- rewritten hundreds of letters and emails, and simplified customer journeys – saving them £1.4m
- made job descriptions more inclusive, and onboarding materials more welcoming
- created guidelines to help sub-brands like HSBC Premier flex the tone
- written scripts for videos, call agents and chatbots
- evolved the tone of voice guidelines over time, like covering inclusive writing and aligning with the bank's new purpose.
