Comparison
Readability score, customer panel or Dutified?
A readability score checks how hard the sentences are to read, nothing more. A customer panel asks real people what they understood, which is the most direct answer there is, but it takes weeks and only covers a few people, so most communications never get tested that way. Dutified runs 200 modelled customers against the Consumer Duty questions on every draft before it goes out, with a sample checked against real readers to keep it calibrated.
The short version
| Readability score | Customer panel | Dutified | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it tells you | How hard the sentences and words are to read | What a small group of real people understood and felt | Who understood the point, who missed it and which group struggled, weighted towards vulnerable customers |
| How long it takes | Seconds | Weeks, from recruiting people to a written report | Minutes per draft, so every version can be tested, not just the final one |
| Who is tested | Nobody. It is a formula run on the text | A small group, recruited once and rarely repeated | 200 modelled customers built to mirror your firm's own customer base, with a sample checked against real readers |
| Where it fails | A short, simple sentence can still land on the wrong meaning | Too small and too slow to run on every letter, email and web page you send | A model of a customer, not a customer. It supports a human sign-off, it does not replace one |
When a readability score is the right call
As a first filter. If a sentence scores badly, it is almost always worth rewriting, and the check costs nothing and takes no time. It cannot tell you whether the sentence that reads easily is the sentence a worried customer actually takes away, which is the question the Consumer Duty asks.
When a customer panel is the right call
For the handful of communications where a deep, open-ended conversation with real customers matters more than coverage: a major product change, a new application journey, anything you plan to run for years. A panel hears things a model cannot, in a customer's own words.
When Dutified is the right call
For the letters, emails, ads, web pages and app screens that go out every week and that a panel was never going to reach. Dutified checks each one against the four Consumer Duty outcomes and tests it on 200 modelled customers built to mirror your firm's own book, with a second pass weighted towards the customers most likely to struggle, before it goes out rather than after the complaints arrive.
How the three work together
In practice they are not rivals. A readability score catches the obvious problems for free. Dutified tests the volume: every version of every communication, at the speed the business actually sends them. A customer panel still earns its place for the few things worth a real conversation, and real readers also check a sample of Dutified's output so the model stays calibrated to how people actually respond. None of the three is compliance advice; what a modelled customer or a real one makes of a letter is evidence for a human to weigh, not a verdict.
What to ask before you choose
- How many of our communications are never tested at all before they go out?
- When something does get tested, do the results tell us who struggled, not just the average?
- If a panel told us something years ago, has the communication changed since?
How The Proposition fits
Dutified is The Proposition's first product: the same evidence-first approach to what a buyer or customer actually takes from your words, built for the Consumer Duty rather than for sales. See how Dutified works, or read the FCA's own Consumer Duty outcomes it is tested against. The consultant, agency or in-house and fractional CMO comparisons cover the sales-side choice.
Questions people ask
Can you run a customer panel and Dutified on the same communication?
Yes. Many firms use a panel for the handful of communications that justify weeks of research, and Dutified for everything else that goes out every week.
Does a good readability score mean a letter is understood?
No. It means the sentences are short and the words are common. Whether the reader took away the right deadline or the right amount owed is a different question, and the one the Consumer Duty asks.
Is a modelled customer the same as a real one?
No. A modelled customer is built to behave like one of your real customers so you can test every draft, not just a handful; a sample of the results is checked against real readers to keep that calibration honest. It supports a human decision, it is not a substitute for one.
How many communications does a typical panel actually cover in a year?
Traditional research is usually a small group recruited once, which is why most of what a firm sends out has never been tested on a real reader at all.
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