Uniforms, Vans and the Old Phone Number

The number on the back doors

A business changes its main number, moves to a new web address or redraws its logo, and updates the website the same week.

The vans still carry the old number on the back doors. The shirts in the cupboard have the old logo. The quote template lists an email address that stopped working two years ago.

None of it was a decision. Each item was printed once, years ago, and nobody has looked at it since.

Customers see all of it, often before they see the website.

Where the old details hide

• Vehicles, including the trailer and the van bought second-hand.
• Uniforms and hats, embroidered from a file the embroiderer still keeps.
• Signs on the building, the job site and the trade show stand.
• Templates for quotes, invoices, receipts and work orders.
• Things given away: magnets, stickers, pens, calendars.
• Directories and listings that copied your details years ago.
• The voicemail greeting and the email signature.

The fourth is the one to fix first. A van is lettered once, but a quote template reproduces the old number every working day, on documents customers keep and act on.

What an old number does

Customers save the number they see. The one on the van, the magnet on the fridge or the old invoice is the one they call, sometimes years later.

If the old line forwards to the new one, no harm is done until somebody cancels the forwarding to save a few dollars a month.

If it has been disconnected, the call fails. Eventually the number is given to somebody else, and your customers start reaching a stranger.

Web addresses that lead nowhere

An old domain printed on a van or a brochure does no harm while it still points at the current site.

Let it lapse, and the address shows an error. Worse, expired domains are routinely bought up by others and filled with advertising, under a name your customers recognise.

Keep every domain that has ever been printed, renew it alongside the main one, and redirect it to the matching page on the current site.

Printed codes for phones to scan are the same problem. Check where each one leads before the next batch of brochures is ordered.

Two logos at once

A logo change that reaches the website and the new vans, but not the older vans or the shirts, leaves the business wearing two identities.

Customers notice. Two logos on two vehicles in the same driveway can look like two businesses, or like a business that has changed hands.

That is not a reason to reprint everything at once. It is a reason to know where each version is, and to plan when each will go.

A worked example

A heating and air conditioning company runs four vans in the Tri-Cities. Three years ago it moved from the owner's cell number to an office line.

The cell plan was cancelled a year later. Two of the older vans still carried that number on their back doors, along with the company's first web address.

A customer who had saved the number from a van in traffic called it and reached a stranger, who by then was used to the calls.

The first web address was still registered but pointed nowhere, so it showed an error page.

The company had both sets of back doors re-lettered with the current number and address, pointed the old domain at the current site, and listed everything else still carrying the cell number.

Taking the inventory

Walk the premises, the yard and every vehicle with a notebook. Open the cupboard with the spare shirts, and the drawer with the old business cards.

Then search online for the old number and the old address in quotation marks. The results show directories and listings that still carry them.

Ask staff as well. Whoever orders the hats knows where the last batch came from, and whoever does the invoicing knows which template is really in use.

For each item, note what it shows, how many there are, how many people see it, and when it would normally be replaced.

The order to fix things in

Start with what is free: templates, the email signature, the voicemail greeting and online listings. These can all be right by the end of the week.

Then the most visible paid items, which are usually the vehicles. Re-lettering one panel costs far less than a new wrap, and the panel with the number is the one that matters.

Shirts and hats can wait for the next order, and signs for the end of their natural life, provided the contact details on them still work.

Keep the old routes open

Until every printed item has been replaced, keep the old number forwarding and the old domain redirecting, and send mail for the old email address to a current inbox.

These cost little, and they turn every forgotten magnet and business card into a route that still works.

Put the renewal dates for the old domain and the forwarding in the same calendar as the main ones, so neither lapses by accident.

A sheet for suppliers

The next order is where old details creep back in, because the sign shop, the printer and the embroiderer each reuse the files they already hold.

Give them one page with the current logo files, colours, phone number, web address and email, and ask each to replace what they have on file.

Embroidery needs particular care. The stitch file made from your logo years ago stays with the embroiderer, and it will be used again unless they are told otherwise.

The counter-case

Not every mismatch is worth money.

If a full rebrand is planned within the year, patching the old look means paying twice. Fix the contact details now and leave the rest for the rebrand.

An older shirt with a slightly different logo, worn by somebody doing good work, costs little. A wrong phone number on a van costs calls.

Fix whatever sends people to a dead end first, and bring the rest into line as it wears out.

This month

1. Walk the premises and vehicles with a notebook.
2. Search for the old number in quotation marks.
3. Fix the templates and signatures this week.
4. Keep the old number and domain working.
5. Re-letter the vehicles where the number is wrong.
6. Send suppliers one page of current details.
7. Replace the rest as it wears out.

Step four is the safety net for everything the inventory misses, since a forwarded number and a redirected domain keep forgotten items working until they are found.

Getting the logo files themselves in order is covered in a logo that blurs on sharp screens.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.