Candour, a digital creative agency in Norwich, has collaborated with Cracknell Law, a specialist business law firm to design client-friendly business Terms and Conditions to combat the problem of customers not fully understanding legal terms of business contracts.
Terms & Conditions are essential for businesses to set out the applicable rights, obligations and expectations with its customers. After identifying that most legal documents contain lengthy information in unreadable block text, the two companies wanted to push the boundaries of what a contract can be, rather than simply accepting the traditional form.
By combining their approaches, the two companies have created a unique set of illustrated, client-friendly ‘Visual Terms’, enabling legal terms to be integrated with a business’s marketing strategy.
The move follows a consumer green paper published by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills that showed consumers are more likely to read and understand Terms and Conditions that have been shortened and simplified. *
The Visual Terms start with a two-page process flow diagram clearly mapping out the customer journey throughout the provision of services, whilst tying in the relevant legal terms at each stage. Plain English summaries of the clause text and bespoke creative illustrations also reflect the nature of the clauses, providing a transparent and understandable framework.
This new, pioneering approach is the brainchild of Ryan Cracknell, a commercial contract specialist and Managing Director of Cracknell Law, based in Norwich.
Ryan says: “Businesses spend a huge amount of time on ensuring their marketing and tone of voice are on point but then they provide a lengthy, unwieldy document for the customer to read and sign. Reading pages and pages of legal text is not an exciting proposition for any potential client!
Considerable effort has gone into assessing how we could reduce the length of clauses to make them more intelligible without losing their legal effect. This allows our Visual Terms & Conditions to become a seamless part of the sales and client onboarding process.
We are very pleased to be able to offer visual terms to our clients which can be fully customised to their business.”
John Skinner, Creative Director of Candour adds; “We are absolutely delighted with our new Terms and Conditions document. Rather than being a very dry document that feels like an onerous part of the customer journey, it now offers a further opportunity to reinforce our brand values and build the relationship with our clients.
Candour’s core ethos is one of transparency and honesty and we want to be able to reassure clients with terms that are clear and completely understandable. This document really helps us to get clients over the line in a spirit of mutual understanding.”
Businesses interested in creating bespoke Visual Terms and Conditions for their business should contact Cracknell Law on 01603 339044.
Photo caption: John Skinner (left) from Candour with Ryan Cracknell (right) from Cracknell Law with their unique Visual Terms.
About the green paper *In March 2016 the Department for Business Innovation & Skills issued a call for evidence for recommendations for how T&Cs can be made to be more accessible for consumers: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-terms-and-conditions
About Candour A digital agency that believes in the power of open minds and frank discussion, focusing on brand and digital. www.withcandour.co.uk
About Cracknell Law Cracknell Law is a niche Business Law firm based in Norwich, Duxford and London. The firm specialises in Corporate Law, Commercial Law, Data Protection, Employment and Intellectual Property Law. www.cracknelllaw.com