See how costly your publications are.

Your publications have fixed costs and hidden costs both in time and money.  These costs are extremely expensive, especially the hidden ones.

Fixed Costs

Let's first look at your fixed costs, which include:

• The resources to initially create your documents.

• The resources to review them.

• The resources to modify them so they meet the necessary writing standards.

• The time this whole process takes, from start to finish.

Add all this up and you'll see that your fixed costs in time and money are substantial. Then ask yourself, do the final products match the private sector's writing quality? Most government documents don't, and this creates hidden costs.

Hidden costs

Your hidden costs result from how your customers respond to your documents. When you have a document that's not precise, your customers react in one of two ways:

Group-A

Readers in Group-A want to understand what your document is trying to communicate, but they're confused. What do they do? They call your agency, and they do so in large numbers. Some of them wait patiently on hold to be helped; some don't and hang up.

So what's the cost? The document accidentally created questions instead of answers. Now you have to pay staff to answer the same types of questions all day, everyday. Then there's the cost of those customers who couldn't or wouldn't wait on hold. Now you have to redouble your efforts to reach them – and these are your easier customers. By contrast, look at what Group-B is like.

Group-B

Readers in Group-B stop reading a document that confuses them, sometimes with the half-hearted promise to get back to it later. However, most of them never get back to it, so they never know or do what it is that you want them to. What do you do next? You send more letters and await a response, often with the same result.

But what's the cost? It's the repeated mass mailings, lost time, and diminishing customer responsiveness. And that's just the beginning...

Total costs

When you add up your fixed and hidden costs, your expenses skyrocket. What's more, you face other issues already. See for yourself: look at the growing problems that threaten your resources.