Quality – your firm’s image

I’ll start the series of blogs with the quality impression your firm gives to your customers and potential customers. It is well known that we only have one chance to give a good impression and visual impact plays a huge part of this immediate judgment.

Most of us are no longer ‘start-ups’, we are now established survivors, and the focus of our business may well have changed since we first launched our businesses.

We have had several blog entries (by Abelone Glahn, Charlotte Hammer and Susanne Lassen to mention just a few ) on the topic of business cards, virtual and otherwise, electronic signatures, homepages etc. (refer blog entries www.mikronet.dk)

It is not necessary to spend a great deal of money on the ‘public’ part of your company – your homepage, business card, email signature, letterhead and invoice layout, linked-in and facebook presentations, but it is important to present a clear and professional layout that is consistent with your business.

So have a good and critical look at your business card – does it give a relevant impression of your business, tell the recipient just who you are and what you do? And is the print clear and of a font size that is easy to read?

Many of us are so close to our businesses that we don't see the most obvious mistakes. Try and look at your business card from the customer’s viewpoint – maybe get some colleagues or ‘friendly competitors’ to give you a critical evaluation.

Your web site is often the first contact your customers have with your firm, so have a good clear home page that tells what your core services are. And make the look of the site reflect what your business does – a designer’s or artist’s homepage will be very different from mine, which tends to be more factual.

And, as mentioned in a previous blog – keep your site focused. Mine are not at present, I need to separate my business intelligence from translation activities and Business and Technical English courses.

And of course – dress in a professional manner when meeting customers. Not always as easy as it sounds, but it can be learned and it is important.

Once these important aspects are dealt with and you know that your business is presenting a professional and relevant public face to the world we can start on the internal quality processes. It could be argued that these should be in order first, but reality means that to survive and grow, we have to attract the customers and then keep them by dint of good work.