Lead with the plain description and use the invented name as a label alongside it. Nobody searches for a name only you use, and nobody can compare a service they cannot identify.

Why businesses invent names

Naming a service package feels like a step toward being a proper business: the Platinum Care Plan, the SafeGuard Service, the Complete Home Package.

The reasoning is reasonable. A name makes something feel defined, it distinguishes you from competitors selling the same thing, and it makes tiers comparable to each other.

It also creates something you own, which is genuinely valuable when a service becomes well known.

The problem is that it becomes well known only in a very small number of cases, and in the meantime it stands between the customer and understanding what you sell.

What the name costs

The first is the largest and the least visible. A page titled with an invented name matches nothing anybody types, so the page can be good and never be found.

Tier names say nothing

The specific version that appears most often, and it is worse than it looks.

Bronze, silver, and gold, or standard, premium, and ultimate, tell a customer only which is more expensive.

They do not say what is different, which is the actual question, so the customer has to read the comparison anyway and the names contributed nothing.

Worse, they invite a customer to place themselves rather than to choose what they need, and most people place themselves in the middle regardless of fit.

Names describing what each covers do the work instead: annual service, annual service with parts, and annual service with priority callout.

Longer, plainer, and immediately understandable, which is the trade worth making.

Lead with the description

The arrangement that keeps both, and it costs nothing.

Put the plain description first and the invented name second, as a label rather than as the headline.

Annual boiler service and safety check, which we call the Care Plan, is understood immediately and still gives you a name to use.

Page titles, headings, and adverts use the description. The name appears in the body, on invoices, and in conversation once the customer knows what it means.

That way the name accumulates recognition among people who have already bought, which is the only place it was ever going to be recognised.

A worked example

A business named its three maintenance packages after a theme, with names that were pleasant and meant nothing outside the business.

The pages for each ranked for nothing, and staff spent every call explaining which package included what.

They renamed the pages to describe the service and the interval, keeping the theme names as labels within the page.

The pages began appearing for searches about the service and the frequency, and enquiries specified which one they wanted rather than asking.

The invented names continued to be used on invoices and in conversation with existing customers, where they worked fine.

Their observation was that the names had never been the problem, and using them as headings had been.

The test

One question, applied to any name you are considering.

Would somebody who has never heard of your business type this into a search box.

If the answer is no, the name cannot be the way a stranger finds the service, which means the description has to carry that job.

A second question is worth asking too: could a customer explain to a friend what this is, using the name alone.

Where they would have to describe it instead, the name is a label rather than a description, and it belongs in the supporting position.

When a name earns its place

Because this is not an argument against ever naming anything.

Where the service is genuinely distinctive and has no plain description, a name is doing necessary work.

Where you have enough exposure that the name will become known, which usually means substantial advertising or a long-established local presence.

Where the name is descriptive in itself, such as one containing the service and the interval, which gets both benefits at once.

And where you intend to protect it, since a distinctive name is registrable in a way that a description is not.

Outside those, the name is decoration on a page that needed to be findable.

Ask what customers call it

The check that settles most naming questions.

Listen to how customers describe what they want when they telephone, and use those words.

They will not use your name, and they frequently will not use the trade term either, which is a separate problem with the same remedy.

Write down the phrases people actually use over a month, and the most common one is your page title.

That costs nothing, requires no research, and produces a better answer than any internal discussion about naming.

The same applies to your job titles

A smaller version of the problem that shows up on team pages and in email signatures.

Invented internal titles, or ones borrowed from larger organisations, leave a customer unsure who they are dealing with and whether that person can make a decision.

A customer wants to know whether they are speaking to the owner, somebody who does the work, or somebody who books it in.

Plain titles answer that in a word, where an invented one requires the same translation as an invented service name.

The test is identical: could somebody outside the business tell what this person does from the title alone.

The counter-case

Descriptive names have limits too.

A page titled with a long plain description can read as generic, and where every competitor uses the same words, distinctiveness has value.

Some businesses also genuinely build recognition around named offerings, and a business that never names anything has nothing to become known for.

And internally, named packages are easier to discuss and to build processes around than long descriptions.

Name things for internal use and for existing customers, describe them for strangers, and let the description lead wherever somebody might be searching.

What to do

  1. Ask whether anybody would search the name.
  2. Lead with the plain description.
  3. Keep the name as a label alongside.
  4. Replace tier names with what each covers.
  5. Use descriptions in page titles and adverts.
  6. Write down the words customers use on the phone.
  7. Name it properly only if you will advertise it.

Step four fixes the most common version, since bronze and gold tell a customer only which is dearer and leave the real question unanswered.

The wider vocabulary problem is covered in naming services the way customers do.

Frequently asked questions

Why do invented service names cause problems?

Because nobody searches for a term only you use, customers cannot compare what they cannot identify, and every page and phone call has to explain the name before the service.

What is wrong with tier names?

Bronze, silver, and gold tell a customer only which is dearer. They do not say what differs, which is the actual question, so the comparison has to be read anyway.

Can I keep the name?

Yes, as a label alongside the description rather than as the headline. Annual service and safety check, which we call the Care Plan, does both jobs.

What is the test?

Would somebody who has never heard of you type this into a search box. If not, the description has to carry that job and the name goes in the supporting position.

When does a name earn its place?

When the service has no plain description, when you have enough exposure for it to become known, when the name is itself descriptive, or when you intend to register it.

How do I choose the description?

Write down how customers describe what they want when they telephone, over a month. The most common phrase is your page title.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Packages named bronze, silver and gold?

Rename them by what each covers. Longer, plainer, and it answers the question the tier names left open.

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