This Could Spell Disaster

Renegade Tribune has morphed into a rallying flag for the international community of ethnic-Europeans. Many will be business owners who, to survive high costs and hot competition, constantly search for the edge in their struggle to win customers.

Even when money is tight there are ways by which you can keep up appearances. Online entrepreneur, Charles Duncombe, says he and his staff are ‘shocked at the poor quality of written English’. He reminds the business community that when you sell or communicate by the internet 99% of the time it is done by the written word.

The eminent entrepreneur carried out a survey the results of which give pause for thought: “Customer spending on a website can be cut in half by a single spelling mistake.”

Duncombe says he measured the revenue per visitor to an online entity. Revenue doubled after a single selling mistake had been corrected. He goes on to say that in the UK alone tens of millions of pounds are lost by internet-based businesses.

Social media has created a tolerance of poor spelling and grammar. However, when this sub-culture is applied to website and advertising content it raises customer concern over trust and credibility.  “Misspellings put off consumers who could have concerns about a website’s credibility.” 

Professor Duncombe’s fears are echoed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Their report reveals that many employers have to invest in remedial literacy lessons for their staff.

William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute suggests that browsers are wary of spam or phishing efforts; “a misspelt word could be the killer,” he says.

Because of the complexities of the English language spellcheckers can never be more than an unreliable guide. Poor spelling and grammar in marketing literature or online content suggest sloppiness.

In order to cut costs many businesses either write their own website content or invite a family member to do so. This could spell disaster. Do we really want our cars and gas boilers repaired by service engineers who can’t even master their own language?

I groaned when I checked out the written content of a real estate agent. My friend expected to sell properties valued at over $100,000 from online content that looked like it had been written by a 12-year old inattentive pupil.

Offering to fix it for him the estate agent balked. He explained that his wife had written the content and she thought her written English and grammar perfect. Let us hope she isn’t writing books on health or diet; her readers could die of a misprint.

Mike Walsh was principal executive for the Guild of Master Craftsmen and Federation of Master Builders. He now provides a copy editing and ghost-writing service for businesses.

www.spanglefish.com/michaelwalshpoetry/