The Devil in the Details

I just received an incredibly compelling cold-call e-mail encouraging me to hire the sponsoring firm to update and optimize my company website. It was friendly, sounded knowledgeable, made points I agree with, and sounded like they had actually looked at my site and had real feedback to share. 

So I looked them up.

No, I didn’t follow the links in the e-mail. Despite the fact that the e-mail address matched the company name, etc., indicating it probably wasn’t a hack, I wanted to check out the company. (And didn’t want them to get too excited by seeing that I followed their links. Don’t worry, guys -- I’ll make the next move if there’s a chance of going further. I want to learn more about you without wasting your time.)

The company has an unusual name, so auto-complete in my search engine should find it before I finish typing, right? It didn’t. Hmm.

So this firm wants to web-optimize my site for search, but their site doesn’t auto-complete? Hmm, again.

But that’s not all, folks. The firm/ site name in the e-mail was wrong. And the accompanying e-mail address was wrong. It wasn’t far off, but it was wrong. Consistently.

The site/ e-mail shown in the pitch doesn’t exist. So, for all the good they have to offer, for all the right things they said, and the camaraderie they created out of nowhere – it’s all back to nowhere because of a typo.

Their timing was (almost) really good. I’ve been over-hauling and web-optimizing my site. They were right – it really needed doing.

Nonetheless, they lost me nearly as quickly as they had me. All because of a tiny mistake. Because of this, I couldn’t possibly trust my online baby with them … and I proofed the updated site yet again before going live.

Note to self: proofread! Get a colleague to give your work a fresh set of eyes. Your reputation will thank you.

A3 Research chief research officer Alisa Adamson consults with business people to make smarter, market-driven decisions.