When I grow up I’m going to be-.

I thought I’d check out the mobile airtime company that was hassling me. I found two different sites on the Internet, both in the same style, though different colours, and identical head office contact details. Neither had information about key people in the company (so maybe the guy who called me really didn’t know the name of the Managing Director) but that was easily overcome with a little help from Google.

On one site the company described itself as one of Europe’s leading contact centres with capacity for more than 600 operators over 36,000 square feet of office space and a turnover in excess of £22+m.

On the other site it was one of Europe’s largest and most respected mobile phone specialists with capacity for more than 300 operators over 16,000 square feet of office space and a turnover of in excess of £20+m.

Something was niggling away at the back of my mind so I went back to double check my facts a few days later and discovered that the two sites had “morphed” into one!

The company has apparently decided that it is first and foremost a contact centre and adopted the size and number attributes from that site. So that settles it then. However, it obviously decided it liked the colour and content of the mobile phone specialists’ site. And it has kept the gem that was on that site last week:

“We genuinely believe our people are our most important asset and our highly trained and motivated team is committed to supporting the companies principle’s of providing the highest levels of customer care” (the bold is mine).

Out of interest, how many people, at what level in the company, do you suppose were involved in contributing to that brand identity exercise before it got sign off?

I’m happy to admit that my English grammar is by no means perfect but, please, nobody spotted that “companies principle’s” should have read “company’s principles”??? So the tips that emerge from this example are:

• Don’t rely on spell checks to pick up grammatical clangers
• Get a third party who hasn’t been involved in crafting your wonderful words (someone whose command of the language you respect) to proof read for you before you “go public”

Meantime, the activities of my fast-talking female “friend” at the company have, so far, been effective. No more calls trying to sell me an airtime contract!