How not to engage potential customers
May. 9th, 2009 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasseIt’s not a good sign when after completing a survey for a company the English used was so terrible that I ended up writing things like "grammatically incorrect: cannot understand question" and "no me interesso un cazzo" in the comment boxes before finally ending my input with the following in the last ‘how do you think this survey could be improved’ text box:
"Please have your survey checked over by a native English speaker or at least somebody whose English is of a passable level. It really damages the participant’s desire to complete the survey when it’s evidently been written by somebody who doesn’t speak English very well at all. Furthermore this lack of bothering with correct English makes the survey participant suspect that the company producing the survey doesn’t really care about either its product or its potential customers thus creating a very negative impression, which is a shame since I’ve found [specific company] products to be innovative, reliable and stylish choices in the past."
The really sad part is that I recognise the grammatical error, though it took me a while since I didn’t expect to see it in an officially published survey, because it’s exactly the same error made by various saffron-wearing personages from time to time. Not that that excuses it, because the nuns I’ve met from the relevant country don’t make that error in English and never have.
"Please have your survey checked over by a native English speaker or at least somebody whose English is of a passable level. It really damages the participant’s desire to complete the survey when it’s evidently been written by somebody who doesn’t speak English very well at all. Furthermore this lack of bothering with correct English makes the survey participant suspect that the company producing the survey doesn’t really care about either its product or its potential customers thus creating a very negative impression, which is a shame since I’ve found [specific company] products to be innovative, reliable and stylish choices in the past."
The really sad part is that I recognise the grammatical error, though it took me a while since I didn’t expect to see it in an officially published survey, because it’s exactly the same error made by various saffron-wearing personages from time to time. Not that that excuses it, because the nuns I’ve met from the relevant country don’t make that error in English and never have.
