Export Communications Review

What is an Export Communications Review?

The Export Communications Review can provide you with impartial and objective advice on language and cultural issues in order to help you develop an effective communications strategy and thus improve your competitiveness in existing and future export markets.

The scheme offers you an on-site review of the way your company currently communicates with your export markets. This typically includes a review of your website, written materials, personal meetings with customers or agents/distributors and general administrative issues that may arise.

An Export Communications Review will allow you to:

Meet with an accredited Export Communications consultant, who has been trained by the British Chambers of Commerce to deliver Export Communications Reviews.
Receive a report, which documents strengths and weaknesses in the way you communicate with your customers and partners overseas and sets out a number of recommendations tailored to your requirements.

An Export Communications Review has helped exporters to:

Improve relationships with overseas customers and distributors.
Communicate successfully with export markets.
Handle enquiries from export markets competently, efficiently and professionally.
Increase export turnover.
Develop export business in markets once thought too difficult.
Gain knowledge of prices, procedures and suppliers within the language industry.

Are You Eligible to apply for this support?

The support is open to companies who:

Are UK based and have been trading for a minimum of 2 years.
Currently export or have plans in place to start exporting.
Export goods or services that are mainly of UK origin.

Financial support is available to companies with fewer than 250 employees.

Tractair Ltd

Export turnover has increased by £200,000 in the last 12 months at Tractair Ltd, a company which designs and manufactures heavy duty air braking systems for agricultural vehicles.

Company Director, Martin Constantine, attributes some of this rapid growth to improvements made following an Export Communications Review:

"We are engineers, not marketers. Our export business was growing and it made sense to us to have a professional, independent assessment of the way we were communicating with our overseas customers.

The recommendations made during the Review, such as building an internationally orientated website, have led to enquiries from as far afield as Canada, Iceland, Australia and Italy. The review gave us the confidence to approach larger customers, which has led to the building of a substantial international customer base. A recent trip to Italy, for example, generated export enquiries worth £1.1 million over twelve months.

Tractair is a relatively small family business but we have now developed the capacity to trade with some of the largest tractor manufacturers in the world. The Export Communications Review proved an important catalyst for change and has helped us to become a more successful exporter."

Martin Constantine, Director