There seems to be a lot of demand for our copy editing and proofreading services at the moment: it’s fantastic that so many clients recognise that small things can make a big difference. A truism when I worked in the supermarket business was “retail is detail” – the convenience of the rhyme belies how this clearly applies in any industry!
When it comes to blogs and opinion pieces that are written in-house, it’s really important to keep the authentic voice of the individual. Experts in every field have insightful and interesting perspectives and insights, which can generate a lot of credibility for your organisation. It’s a shame when that’s undermined by grammar, spelling and style errors. A professional edit can polish up your own words to make them the best they can be, in structure and tone, without losing any of the personal impact.
Seemingly short and trivial pieces of communication may seem easy to produce in-house, but typos and errors anywhere can give prospective customers an unfortunate impression of your company’s attitude and attention to detail. In the last few weeks I’ve reviewed and improved online help pop-ups, short customer information letters and the titles and supporting text for an IT services portal. In every case, the content was straightforward – it was completely sensible for the technical or customer service team to produce it.
But making this basic, factual text accurate, well structured and easy to read has a big impact: it’s some of the most frequently read copy that any of these clients puts in front of their customers. Professional editing and proofreading didn’t take much time (or cost to the client!) The changes were minimal – but crucial to customer perception.
If you’d like me to apply my copy editing duster and beeswax to anything you’ve written in-house, however small, ask me for a quote. It’s a quick and cost-effective way of making a sparkling impression.