First impressions can mean so much. Did you know that you could make a first impression without even meeting someone?

If you are a business, there is so much that represents you and your company. Your letterhead, your advertisements, your equipment, your technicians or sales people, even the truck or van you drive.

Now, I’m not getting quite so picky as saying the kind of van or truck you drive, but what you put on that vehicle to represent your company makes a first impression too.

Recently, I was in the market for an air conditioner repair service. While stopped at a red light, I glanced over at a van in the lane next to me.

The first word I noticed was “air” and obviously it caught my attention. The van was in my neighborhood and I assumed that meant they serviced in my area. I read the name of the company and noticed it had numbers listed and one of them was for the county I lived in. Great. What luck! I reached for my handheld computer so I could write down the telephone number before the light turned green and I lost the van in the traffic.

As an avid reader, I can’t help myself when it comes to reading everything in sight. My eyes wandered across the side of the van and I read their motto, “The Company that Quality and Integrety Built.”

Yes, you are right, this is not a typo on my part. “Integrity” was not spelled correctly.

Incredulously, I searched my mind for a legitimate reason why this company would let such a mistake appear on their company van in six-inch high letters for the entire world to see?

Did I want a company servicing an appliance in my home that didn’t care if they spelled a word wrong on the side of their van? I don’t think so. What else didn’t they care about?

So, instead of writing their number down, I wrote their motto down. Instead of me calling them for service, I found another service repair company.

Later, thinking I might at least call the company and see if my first impression was too hasty, I looked in the telephone book for their number--no number; no such company listed in any of my telephone books.

Then, I called Information thinking they might be listed there--no number in my county or the next county. How many other potential customers have been lost to this company or others with similar issues?

That got me thinking even further. I questioned whether losing my business meant anything to that company. Did it? They were a small local service who probably had enough contracts to keep them busy or as many as they could handle. If they needed more, wouldn’t they advertise in the yellow pages? Wouldn’t they list their telephone number with Information?

What if it weren’t a small local business, but a large, nation-wide company that had such a blatant mistake on their vehicle? Would you be more willing to excuse their error and accept their guarantee of quality service?

All too often, advertising copy or other written material slips through the quality control checkpoints. Ads are printed with incorrect telephone numbers. Articles are written with misspelled words. Nearly every day, I see a Correction box in the newspaper telling me what was wrong in yesterday’s paper. Since when has it become acceptable to accept errors? What happened to zero-defects? Zero-tolerance? Zero Errors? Maybe my expectations are higher than most. Should I be expected to lower my expectations because the rest of the world seems to have?

Maybe I should just write to whomever is in charge of the dictionary definitions and ask them to change the definition of quality. And, while they’re at it, maybe they can put in the alternate spelling for “integrety.”

Or maybe, we should pay closer attention to the real meaning of quality and get it right the first time. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression.