Imagine it’s Monday, the start of your work week. You’re checking email to prioritize your messages and responses.
Your inbox has several client messages, a follow up message from customer support issue you requested last week, inquiries about your services, along with a few newsletters.
As you go through your email, one message stands out.
Not because it’s in capital letters. Or it’s announcing an upcoming event in your field.
It’s because the subject line is clear, concise, and to the point.
That’s what happened to me this week, with a message about a privacy policy.
Yes, I know. You’re likely rolling your eyes as you read this.
I mean, who reads privacy policy update messages?
In this case, I did. Read it. Smiled.
And thought to myself,
Why can’t every organization follow this model?
Read on to learn why I’m giving a UX win to Uptime Robot for their privacy policy update notification.
Uptime Robot
Uptime Robot is an online service that monitors website uptime. Once you sign up, your websites will be monitored every five minutes.
If one of your sites go down, you’ll be alerted with an email message.
Uptime Robot is one of my favorite tools for managing my client sites as well as my own site. It’s offered a free monitoring service since 2010, allowing you to monitor up to 50 sites.
In 2013, they introduced a Pro Plan where you can monitor more than 50 sites, get SSL monitoring, as well as voice call or text alerts.
And from their privacy policy notice I received this week, it’s clear to me they know their customers and how to communicate changes.
Uptime Robot Privacy Policy Change
Email messages announcing privacy policy updates and terms of service changes are usually filled with legal wording.
They’re difficult to understand, and direct you to the updated policy or terms on the organization website.
Where you’re left wondering what changed in an eight-screen wall of text explaining their policy or terms of service.
Because the organization didn’t care to tell you what changed, only that their policies have changed.
That’s not what Uptime Robot did in their email message about changes.
They actually cared about their users and took the time to craft a meaningful, useful message with:
- Concise subject line:
A minor update to our Privacy Policy.
I knew what the message was about. - All text. There were no images. Why slow down display on a privacy policy update notice?
- Set up expectations quickly. Their first sentence reiterated the subject line, their interest in sharing the changes with customers, along with the Privacy Page link.
There is a minor update to our Privacy Policy and wanted to inform you about it.
- Explain the details. Two new services are being added to their list of sub-processors. Uptime Robot explained what the two new services were and what happened during downtimes.
- Include effective date. The date of the change is two weeks in the future, plenty of time for a customer to ask any questions.
- End the message on a light note. Their message ended with
and … that is all:).
Made me smile when I read it.Announcements of privacy policy changes tend to be formal, dry, without any emotion. The smile emoticon was a nice, friendly touch.
Uptime Robot didn’t force users to a privacy policy page to muddle through paragraphs of text and try to puzzle out what changed.
Rather, they shared the changes in clear, concise language in a short email message.
Uptime Robot demonstrated how they care about their customers, not overburdening customers with long, wordy, privacy policies to read.
Summary
Uptime Robot crafted a succinct privacy policy update message, one that quickly delivers the details and information their clients need to know.
I hope other organizations follow their lead.
Well done, Uptime Robot! I call that a UX win.
Have you noticed other organizations doing something similar to Uptime Robot? Share your experiences in the comments.
