Check Your Spelling
In all aspects of business - online or offline - it is important to appear professional to your customers.
I recently saw a post on a forum which was covered in spelling errors, and even had some occurrences of "you" being replaced with "u". The post went on to try to sell a product. I can't imagine this guy got many (if any) sales. If he couldn't take the two minutes to spell check his post, why should he expect anybody to give him money?
The same thing can be said for a lot of sellers I have encountered on eBay - and I haven’t bought from many of them as a result.
Taking a few moments to spell check your communication really can be the difference between getting a sale or not.
Of course, this applies not just to forum posts, but to all forms of communication with customers or prospects - letters, emails, sales pages…
(I now await the flood of comments pointing out my spelling errors in this, or other posts :D)
Comment by Xenocide — July 4, 2007 @ 11:26 am
i no wot u mean. annoying innit?!
Comment by Gary — July 4, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
I'm not really bothered by spelling mistakes. When you deal with people from all over the world (some of whom, english is not their mothers tongue), it's easy to get past spelling and grammatical issues.
If people would not buy from me because of a spelling mistake, or grammar mistake - I would rather not deal with that type of person anyway. If they are going to cause issues over a typo, they are going to cause bigger issues somewhere down the road. And it ain't worth it.
There is someone in a forum who takes great delight in pointing out other peoples spelling/grammar errors. I would never do business with him as he is a condescending tit.
Comment by Oli — July 4, 2007 @ 5:35 pm
The odd mistake here and there is understandable. Having a page full of them is whar would put me off.
Comment by Will — July 4, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
Depends on what's being sold. If it's a proofreading service that's presenting a bunch of typos then I'd steer clear.
When I'm outsourcing writing assignments, I'm very strict on the spelling and grammar used in any bids. If they can't get something so pivotal right then I'm hardly likely to give them a chance to burden me with hours of proofreading and editing.
Comment by Paul — July 5, 2007 @ 8:48 pm
Garys comment made me laugh as I know this post made us both instantly think of the same person..lol
I have had some JV requests where I had to read the email two or three times to work out what they were actually asking me for, doesn't bode well for their communication skills with their list does it?
I agree with will, what's the point in outsourcing writing assignments if you then have to rewrite the work due to poor English.
Not everyone speaks English as a first language and that is ok, but take some time to think about what you are typing is my advice.
Paul