34. The importance of being earnest

The best people to comment on how well your site works are those who use it. So ask them. Abuse, praise, questions and obscure comments are all valuable feedback.

Annoying, needy and very time consuming – but we desperately need them and their money. So take a deep breath, adjust your fig leaf and start proactively interacting with your customers…

Process This

For many e-commerce sites, the most common email communications from customers refer to orders not yet received, delayed or lost in the post, or the wrong item being received. Assuming that you have dealt with the customer’s issue, you are now left with lots of information that should be captured. Log the number of delayed or lost shipments and show the report to your courier. Ideally they will agree to compensate you for your loss. Or, the information will spur you into finding a replacement courier, and you’ll immediately have a benchmark against which to measure them. If there are numerous items being sent to the wrong addresses, then you have an issue with your supply chain; either this is a software error and the wrong items are being assigned to the wrong customer despatch note, or, more likely, it’s human error and better checks need to be in place in the warehouse. Monitor complaints about slow customer service – it could be that the user is expecting the impossible, and there really is nothing that can be done to improve response times. However, the chances are that improvements can be made and, by monitoring patterns of complaints, you’ll be in a much better position to deal with the situation. So, although receiving a barrage of complaints from customers does mean a lot of work, by paying attention to the big picture you’ll be able to minimise the same mistakes happening again in the future.

Silver Lining

When it comes to airing views, customers are often as happy to give positive feedback as negative comments. The trick is devising a system that will coax the information out of them. But before you can start mailing your customers, you need to decide what to ask them. When approaching customers for feedback, be as specific as possible. Asking users whether they like your site will result in some very bizarre answers, and although you may be happy that Mrs Dwyer thinks the yellow background is wonderful because it’s the same colour as her canary, you have only succeeded in wasting everybody’s time. Be clear about what you are assessing – how satisfied are you with the choice available on our site? How satisfied are you with our delivery charges? Etc. Allow users to mark you out of 5 and allow for extra comments at the end of the questionnaire. Try not to ask more than seven questions unless you are compensating users for their time.

How did it go?

Q. Our sales manager doesn’t want to send a questionnaire to customers without including some sort of promotion. She says it’s a lost opportunity. Is this the right attitude?

A. Every business is different and it may be that you have to combine the two, but adding a sales promotion, unless it’s particularly attractive, is not going to help you get responses to the questionnaire – it will probably just confuse the message or get deleted without consideration. Better to offer an incentive to respond, with either a specific promotion or an electronic gift certificate.

Q. All of our responses were very encouraging and not at all negative. Does this mean we have the perfect site?

A. Unlikely. It just means your questions were loaded to receive positive responses or your sample was badly chosen. Have someone else create the questions and select a fair cross-section of your customer base.

Here is an idea for you…

Create a questionnaire to gauge users’ opinion of your homepage. If you don’t know how to create a questionnaire then you might want to take a look at dedicated survey sites such as Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) which can create and host interactive surveys to gather feedback. When designing your questions try to include space for an open question such as inviting them to finish the statement: If I could change one thing on the homepage it would be…

The answers will be varied and strange, but you’ll probably end up with a good number of alterations that need to be made to the homepage. These answers are coming straight from your users. Their reactions are real, if sometimes odd and medication-driven, and will help give you an insight into who uses your site and why.

Defining idea…

‘Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.’

Bill Gates

Defining idea…

‘It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.’

Oscar Wilde

Defining idea…

‘I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.’

Franklin P. Adams