Three lessons on supporter communications from tube announcers

While I'm a rather mild-mannered commuter, there’s one platform announcement on the London Underground that’s guaranteed to irritate me. Picture the scene if you will The tube train is just arriving into the platform and as it starts to slow down, I’m trying to work out if I’ll be stood near a door. I may not have long to get into position. And then I hear this from the platform announcer: “Please use all the doors!” You see, I want to do the right thing. But how am I supposed to react to this? How is using all the doors even possible? Which door in particular should I go to? It’s not that I’m being facetious. I know that I’m not personally being asked to use all the doors. I do know that they’re basically asking the commuters to spread out a bit along the platform. Of course I do. But the point is, I think: I can’t work out how the message relates to me as an individual. It’s addressed to a group, and therefore has little meaning to me, the listener. There are too many options for me and there’s too much to compute in a very narrow time-frame. So why am I writing about this in a charity blog? Well, I think there are a few lessons for us, particularly in how we communicate with our supporters: 1. Address a single person, not a group of people The announcer’s words are addressed to the commuters as a group, and so the instruction for the single listener is confusing. Tell me to move down the platform and I’ll kno