How to Lose 10% of Your Customers

I recently had a conversation with a marketing friend about one of his pet peeves.  He was upset by the amount of poorly written communication he saw going to customers.  E-mails, data sheets, newsletters, proposals, and quotes- all slipping out without a quick spelling and grammar check.  When he took it up with the other managers, he was told “nobody cares about that stuff any more, it’s not important”.

Sad to say, they’re right.  Seems that indeed, many people just don’t care if you use the wrong there, their or they’re. Even though a quick spell check catches most errors, few even bother.  Probably half of the time the recipient doesn’t even notice.  It probably only makes a difference to about 10%!

And that’s exactly what I told my friend. Think about it- half your customers notice that you can’t spell or use good grammar. Maybe 10% actually care, and maybe that 10% thinks that you’re pretty dumb.  So stop for a second and put yourself in their shoes.  How keen are you to do business with someone you think is “pretty dumb”?

So, how to lose 10% of your customers?  It’s easy. Make it a company policy to not waste time with spell check. In fact, don’t even bother to proofread text before it goes out.  No worries, losing 10% of your business is no big deal.  Or is it?