Working in the web marketing industry for more than a decade – where things are published in an instant and can be seen by hundreds of eyeballs in an hour – has helped me understand the importance of small details. Whether I am doing work for a client or personal work, anything that is going live on the web or going to be seen by others requires a once-over by myself, and sometimes by a WMT teammate, to double-check fine details, facts, spelling, grammar, and my overall tone of the written content.
So, it rocks my world (and not in a good way), when I receive emails from business contacts who constantly misspell my name!
My name is FOUR letters. “A” “N” “N” and yes, with an “E”. Not “Ann” or “Anna”.
Not too complicated, right?! I can understand if it happens once or twice but when it happens again and again from the same person … I start to wonder:
- How can they miss the spelling of my name when they have seen it 3 times in one email? Once in their email inbox, again in the “From” line, and, finally, in my signature.
- If a person cares so little about getting my name spelled correctly, what other details are they going to miss?
- How can I build a professional relationship with someone when they care so little about whether they are spelling my name correctly?
What’s the best way to deal with this? I have been oh-so-tempted to reply back to their email and misspell their name. But if they can’t get the spelling of my name correct in the first place, would they even notice that their name is spelled incorrectly? LOL.
In the past I have ignored it but maybe I should tackle it head on. When I reply to their email, I could sign mine: “Anne (with an E)”
What would you do?