Every now and then I do my parents a favour. Well, it’s only fair as they brought me up to be a very nice, intelligent person, ha!
It’s generally my mother who asks for the favours as she’s the talkative one!
Anyway, as they don’t own a computer (yet), she asked me to bring my laptop on my next visit so she could order some dining room chairs.
[Note: It must be annoying for my parents to be continually told to ‘go on the Internet’ when they don’t actually have access to it]
My parents usually buy on price but obviously they don’t buy the cheapest things if the quality isn’t good.
I recommended that the Internet may be a better place to get her dining room chairs as you can easily shop around [comparethediningchairs.com perhaps?!].
I found a really good deal for her chairs, they were cheaper than the high street store and the website looked legit. I usually check the reviews too just to make sure that the online company is a respected business.
Everything seemed in order. I proceeded to their checkout.
The annoying thing was needing to create an account – I didn’t want an account, I just wanted to order and then leave the site.
I went on…
Ah, there’s a shipping cost involved (fair enough I thought) but no sign of what the shipping cost was at that point. I had to continue entering all my details before finding that out.
Then the company’s next page of the checkout stopped me in my tracks!
They asked me for my ‘Telefone nummer’! Telefone nummer? Not telephone or even phone number. They got both words wrong. They also asked for my ‘Fax nummer’!!
This was under their heading of ‘Your contact informationen’! Informationen? Now, come on, this was getting rather disconcerting. Who did their quality checking? (See the image above for proof!).
That made my mind up – I told my mother that I wasn’t going to buy from that company. Why?
Total unprofessionalism in my opinion. I mean, they couldn’t even be bothered to check their spelling. That gave me no confidence in ordering from them whatsoever.
The result?
They lost a sale and quite a large sale too.
The moral of this story – in my opinion – is that no matter what the quality of the goods are like, you will turn people away if you can’t get the basics right.
Checking for spelling is one of the first things I do. Ok, I may miss the odd thing but I take pride in what I write, design, publish etc. I proof read everything I put out.
Just like the fitness industry, a Personal Trainer may be fantastic at getting results for people but if they get the basics wrong, what image does that portray?
I know some people don’t care about that as long as the trainer gets them great results BUT I care. I care about my content, my spelling, my blogs, my newsletters etc.
I take great care in checking my work and I feel that is important in giving people the right impression when hiring you.
Get the basics right and that’s a solid foundation for building a good reputation. Would you buy an Audi from a guy who drove a 1980s Ford? Would you buy a smart phone from a guy who had one of those brick phones?
Silly examples I know but trying to have a transparent business should be the aim for all companies and that’s what I’m trying to do.
Talking of professionalism, I’m offering 10 free personal training sessions (to 10 individuals) to celebrate the opening of my new fitness studio in Newcastle. You can come along, sample a session and I’ll give you a plan you can take away and implement. If you’re interested, just go to the following link and click to claim your place. You can also bring a friend.
Here’s the link: PERSONAL TRAINING FREE SESSION