STRATEGIC PARTNERS
February 12, 2002
Washington Mutual bank is trying a novel idea: an ATM that speaks like its customers.
The bank's 1,000 ATMs now feature a more natural form of speech, according to the Orange County Register. A total of 600 ATM messages were revised to guide users with phrases like "just a second, we're working on it" instead of the impersonal, robotic ring of "your transaction is being processed."
Washington Mutual's new approach to ATM language is meant to represent "the way people talk to their neighbor over the fence," said Brad Davis, senior vice president.
What the Orange County Register describes as "geekspeak" is entrenched in technology because technical language is more accurate, although sometimes difficult to grasp, and software programmers with a flair for science and not literature write the programs.
