19. I’ve got your number

Use your web site to find out who your customers are and what they want. Emails, questionnaires, forms – they’re all here.

Be polite, don’t beg and don’t promise the earth. Make your users want to help you, not be scared of you.

Be Cool, Honey Bunny

There is nothing worse than having to register on a web site before you are allowed to proceed to the buy button, or worse, to move on from the homepage. At this stage the user might not have a clue what or who you are, so why on earth are they going to be comfortable giving you their personal details? Even asking for an email address and a password is pretty rude – how do they know if you are going to sell their details on? Net result – the user moves on to another site and is probably gone forever.

If you are a subscription-based service and you want to protect the best information for those who pay – fine, but give your casual users a taster, show them examples, win their hearts and minds and you might get some of their wallet too!

It’s Good To Talk

No one will trust a web site without a real world contact number or address listed somewhere on the site, and more importantly, we all like to have a moan, make a comment or generally send emails to nameless, faceless corporations around the world. You will receive a lot of nonsense, but it’s essential that you create a [email protected] email address, so that you can capture and collate user comments.

Everything In Moderation

Limit the number of mailouts you release over any given twelve-month period. Never forget that you are not the only web site that your users visit – each of these web sites will be employing similar tactics, so yours will be one of many unsolicited emails received on that day. Treat your customers as you would wish to be treated yourself (but don’t overdo it on the cakes). Be fair, be specific and remember that familiarity breeds contempt.

No More!

Some users won’t want to hear a word from you, no matter how great your offers, promotions or ‘trusted’ third-party organisations might be. These are users who will visit your site on their terms, when they want; and your sending them emails, SMS messages or even calling them on the phone won’t endear them to you. These customers are just as important as your other customers, and it’s imperative that you offer an opt-out email address for them to write to so that they can’t be mailed in the future. Delaying or ignoring this function will lose you their custom quickly, and could get you a bad name.

A Penny For Your Thoughts

Questionnaires are a great way to get into the mind of your users. Tolerance of long-winded questions is still remarkably high, and I suppose we all like to express our views across the internet. If possible, try to entice people to complete them, it doesn’t have to be much – consumers will do an awful lot for very little. Try offering a low-value gift certificate, or a three-for-two offer that will mean you get the information you want and an extra sale into the bargain! This will also mean a higher response rate and more honest answers.

Not Another Form!

Forms are an important way to capture user date but they should do so in a non-obtrusive way. There really is nothing worse than spending ten minutes filling out a form on the internet, only to have it spat back at you because you missed out an answer or did not answer it correctly. We all make mistakes (yes, even me), and we should not be punished by a trumped-up web site coming back with a rude message at the top of an otherwise blank screen saying that we are incompetent buffoons who don’t even know our own address. Be sure to explain each section well and allow users to fix their errors without having to repeat the entire process.

How did it go?

Q. Management say we can’t ask our customers about a potential new product range as it might give our competitors too much information. Do we run this risk?

A. Obviously some things will be business decisions that must be taken at board level, and remain a secret until launch. Instead, ask your users other questions. For example, if you’re trying to ascertain how much you can charge for shipping to a certain country, ask only those customers that this will affect and give them three options to choose from. This might confirm what you already know, or it might show that you’ll be pricing yourself too high for the market.

Q. The customer service team would rather not involve our customers in any marketing mailouts as it might drive them away? Aren’t they being a little alarmist?

A. Certainly if you start mailing too much, even the most patient of us will start getting angry, but as long as you limit your mailouts, make the unsubscribe function obvious and once in a while throw in a promotion or enticement, consumers will either respond or delete… but if they like everything else about your service, they’ll be back.

Here is an idea for you…

Next time you are considering launching a new line of products or adding an additional section to your web site, ask your users what they think. A simple (well-written) questionnaire, even without an enticement (such as a gift certificate), will usually result in a 2% response rate. Depending on the number of customers’ users’ email addresses you are holding, this can be far more productive than your department sitting around a table for a few hours battling it out.

Defining idea…

‘Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It’s what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it’s hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.’

Peter Drucker