I spoke in my last post about having a plate full of responsibilities.
Now, I've gone and added dessert to the meal by taking on another task, albeit only a temporary one.
I was visiting the osCommerce forums. One of their topic threads is a place where you can post a link to your shopping cart when you finish it, and other members will review your site and offer constructive criticism on what's good and what could be improved. I like to look at the new sites to compare them with how mine is coming along.
I saw this post from a woman who had just about completed her site.
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Hello everyone |
One of the reviewers took her to task for having very poor grammar all over her new osCommerce website, and rightly so, for it was very true. It is readily apparent that english is not her native language.
How could I not feel for this woman? Her motivation is so selfless and pure. The site needed many more corrections than could be offered in a forum setting. And she truly wanted to correct them. So, I offered to go over the website for her, (in my "spare" time...) and send her a list of all the grammatical errors that she should correct.
She was quick to respond that she would love that,. She sent me this message, which warmed my heart to the core. The heck with sleeping, I can catch up on that tomorrow night. ;-)
| Thank you Cathi for taking your time helping me with the grammars on my website. You really made my day. |
She is very quick to incorporate the forum group's feedback into her website. I truly hope she succeeds in her business venture, and that her husband is so surprised by his birthday gift that he becomes an ardent supporter of her endeavors.
All of this did set my mind to wondering, though. Is there a niche market out there for this type of service? I know there are already proofreaders, but they go far more into depth on their projects than what I am doing here. And, there are existing translators, but this site is already written in english. It just needs polishing.
As I told the woman, I am not changing any of her content, whether good or bad, nor writing any content for her. I am simply making sure that what she herself has written is grammatically correct and phrased in a business-like manner.
This could be done for site-owners more quickly than either proofreading or translation, and a lower fee could be charged. The site-owner could feel confident that bad grammar was not lowering their conversion of visitors to customers by giving people a false impression of the owners abilities.
It's something to think about.
Language is and always will be a battle even for the so called language gurus. When ever anyone can assist it makes a difference.
In business people judge us by our content. If it is sloppy people judge the site harshly. Worst of all it is seen by the customer as perhaps a site that is dishonest a font for a online scam.
You have to admit there are a lot out their. So as a customer experience consultant let me give this tidbit. Everything your customer sees or reads on your site goes into the emotional bank they use to make decisions. This includes reading further on a page, trusting you through the purchase process, pushing the please “add to my cart” button, or even whether or not they care to comeback once they have left.
The experience is the over all contact that a customer has including the customer service. If language structure is a problem for you get friends relatives, or in this case fellow community members to review your site including the ease with which it functions.
Is there a business idea in there? Could be, it certainly is neded.
Posted by: Tim Whelan | May 29, 2006 1:14 AM | Permalink to Comment