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Customer support is a writing class based on constant and immediate feedback. If you write something unclear, people will let you know. Either directly, or indirectly by showing they have not understood your point. 

For me, one sign of a highly-skilled support professional is their ability to be concise. To accurately, warmly, clearly convey answers to their customer in as few words as possible (but no fewer). 

By being concise you are reducing your customer’s effort. Conciseness is not being terse. It means communicating information clearly and quickly, and making decisions about what matters and how to convey it. 

That takes a real understanding of the product or service being supported. If you don’t know it deeply, you can’t safely decide what to leave out, and what to include. You will tend to add extra details in case they are important.

Making your answer shorter may take time. This is not a new idea. In 1657 Blaise Pascal made it clear:

“Reverend fathers, my letters were not wont either to be so prolix, or to follow so closely on one another. Want of time must plead my excuse for both of these faults. The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.”

If your support letters are similarly wont to be prolix, here are some ways to be more concise:

How to be concise in support

• Read it out loud: You will hear where it becomes long-winded or repetitive.
• Drop meaningless phrases: “I just wanted to” adds words without adding value.
• Give a direct answer first: Start with the core answer, add details and context as necessary.
• Point to further details elsewhere: Link out to knowledge base articles if they are useful but not essential to the answer.
• Pick an answer: Share the best answer, and let people know there are other options if needed, rather than share them all at once.

Above all, trust your own judgement. For any particular customer and question, these rules may not apply. The point is to always think about how to be concise, never to hit an arbitrary answer length.