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The cost of poor proofreading

7/19/2011

3 Comments

 
Posted by Jon
An interesting article on the BBC News site the other day discussed the impact of spelling mistakes on online sales.

An entrepreneur, Charles Duncombe, noted that “sales figures suggest misspellings put off consumers who could have concerns about a website’s credibility” – especially when one only gets “about six seconds” to capture the viewer’s attention on a website. He quotes a proof point: after a spelling error was corrected on one of his company’s websites, revenue doubled.
​
The article added:
William Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, says that in some informal parts of the internet, such as Facebook, there is greater tolerance towards spelling and grammar. “However, there are other aspects, such as a home page or commercial offering that are not among friends and which raise concerns over trust and credibility,” said Professor Dutton.
​Now, doubtless you’ll find proofreading errors here on our blog. BJ and I write this for fun in our respective spare time; we love sharing ideas and good practices. It’s not a commercial exercise; readers (we hope) understand that. But when it comes to proposals? We’re acutely conscious that the reader draws conclusions about the likely professionalism of your company and solution should they award you the contract from the professionalism of your written proposal.

So where’s the acceptable limit: one proofreading error in the document? Ten? One hundred? A thousand? At what point does a reader’s tolerance for “the occasional mistake being inevitable” and “nobody’s perfect” compromise your credibility – and are you prepared to take the risk?
3 Comments
John Bredehoft
3/25/2016 03:36:56 pm

In a general sense, the acceptable limit varies from customer to customer. If a customer is looking for reasons to select someone else, a “low qualtiy” proposal from you will give them the excuse to go to their preferred vendor. A customer who wants you is more likely to let such things pass.

Of course, there’s always a risk, even with the latter category of customers.

Reply
Robin
3/25/2016 03:37:08 pm

I have a client that just knowingly chose to incorrectly use “onsite” as opposed to “on-site” in all of their print materials. I showed her the dictionary which clearly shows that grammitically correct dictates “on-site”. She basically said…”I don’t care. I prefer onsite and would like to set the new standard.” Her name is not Webster. :)

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dB
3/25/2016 03:37:24 pm

Well the first line of the Technical Volume (one of five) should have read “The XXX transceiver operating in the 225-400MHz band . . .”

But it didn’t come out that way

What the technical evaluators actually saw as an opener was “The XXX TRABSNUTTER operating in the 225-40,000MHz band . . .”

I guess the customer actually did want us

And probably had a good laugh

Because the proposal was actually very, very good and we won a significant £9-figure contract

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    BJ Lownie and Jon Williams are the co-founders of Strategic Proposals.

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