Quick fixes for commercial websites: How to diagnose customer pain points

Five ways to diagnose (and address) customer pain points on commercial websites.

Garry Przyklenk, writing for Search Engine Watch, has a great article for marketing professionals about improving our ability to turn online visitors into customers, clients, and prospects. (The technical name for this process is “conversion optimization.”) The  first step he covers in the article is the one I’m going to talk about here: diagnosing customer pain points.

doctor with patient in painThe truth is that very few marketing teams know if their websites are making life painful for visitors — and that’s because the customer complaints don’t get back to us. In large organizations, or even in mid-size ones, the person responsible for the marketing aspects of the website is often insulated from customer frustration. Chances are that users are squawking to customer service, to sales people in the field, even to tech support — in other words, to people in other departments who roll their eyes and grumble under their breath about “those idiots in marketing.”

Przyklenk notes that if we want to remove the barriers to converting website visitors to website customers, we must seek out the people in the organization who are hearing the moaning and groaning. The means getting the bad news — and good ideas — from:

• The call center. Ask them what they’re hearing from website visitors — and how they’re dealing with it. You’re likely to find you can help them in the short run, and that they can provide valuable input for your longterm website fixes.

• Your IT web team. Are they collecting data on website issues such as abandoned sign-up pages or abandoned shopping carts? If not, ask them to work with you to begin tracking this — it may involve installing third-party software.

• Sales reps. They want to make sales, so chances are they’re coaching prospects and customers on how to deal with your less-than-optimal web pages. Again, find out what they’re telling customers — it could be the basis for a tip or FAQ for the site.

• Customer support. Find out if they use web-based information to assist customers — and what could be done to make that information more helpful and easier for customers to find on their own.

• Fulfillment. Are orders, sign-ups, or donations coming through with inadequate information, leading to errors or re-work on the part of the fulfillment team? Ask them what’s missing from the web-based processes.

Przyklenk advises online marketing folks to try playing the role of the customer. I loved his suggestion that we should try signing up for an account (from a home computer outside the company network) and ordering one of our company’s products — and giving ourselves just 5 minutes in which to do it.

Are you ready to have a great website?

You won’t get a great website until your company is ready for website greatness.

It’s easy to do a great website for a company or organization. Here’s how:

Have a homepage with these 6 attributes:

  1. Your organization’s name, clearly identifiable
  2. A picture of one of your typical products or services with a call-to-action tagline or a benefits statement.
  3. Simple, clearly labeled top or side navigation with one- or two-word links to key pages on the site — and a link that gets you back to the homepage from anywhere on the site.
  4. Icon links to your  related social media pages or channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
  5. All the necessary “small print” links at the bottom of the page (Privacy Policy, Site Map, Contact Us, etc.)
  6. Brevity. On a multi-page website (as opposed to a blog), aim for fewer than 100 words on the homepage (about 75 is ideal) and no paragraphs at all. Think of the homepage as a lobby, and your goal is to get the customer into a showroom, a conference room, or someone’s office.

Have your home page navigation link clearly to:

  1. A “catalog” or products page that lists all of your products and services (or categories of products and services) with a meaningful, iconic photo for each (or each category).
  2. A “buy now” page where people can go to buy/order your products, find a dealer or showroom, or contact you immediately by phone to inquire about services.
  3. A “story” page where you tell your story, with professional, candid photos of two or three of your key people (founders, staff, or clients, etc.). You can link from there to staff, board, or other key-people lists.

You might also have links to:

  • Your blog or news page
  • A page for business partners
  • A page for support or discussion boards, if appropriate.

Who’s doing it right?

Here’s what a great website looks like: Feel free to give behringer.com a spin. It not only looks great, it works, right down to finding me a Behringer distributor in my neighborhood. (And, wouldn’t you know, it’s a electronics shop owned by a friend of mine.)

I particularly liked their blog. Because it focuses exclusively on the recording artists who use their products, it isn’t given the deadly name “Blog” in the navigation — it’s called “Artists.” Think about it: Are people visiting their site interested in artists or a “blog?”

Not as easy as it looks

OK, if it’s this easy, why don’t more companies do it?

Here where we get to the sad part of the story. Watch closely, and cringe as I review the FHE (frequently heard excuses):

1. Your organization’s name, clearly identifiable

  • “We paid thousands for this incredibly clever logo that turns the letters of our name into people jumping up and down. You mean, you can’t see that they spell out “McDonald Software?”
  • “We just use the acronym MSIIBG. Everyone knows that MSIIBG means ‘McDonald Software International, Inc. — Bergstrom Group.’ Don’t they?”
  • “The sales director wants the tagline for the end-of-year campaign up at the top of the page and there wasn’t room for that and the company name.”
  • “Oh, everyone knows us by our logo; we don’t need to spell out the name.”
  • “We’re going through rebranding and might change the company name, so we don’t want to feature it until we’re sure.”

2. A clearly identifiable picture of one of your products or services with a call-to-action tagline or a benefits statement that mentions your product or service.

  • “We don’t use a product photo because we keep updating our product, and don’t want to pay the web designer to update the page. So we use this nice photo of our headquarters at the office park.”
  • “We can’t afford professional photography.”
  • “What do you mean, hundreds of other organizations are using the tagline “Software Solutions”?
  • “No, we don’t sell software, we help small businesses configure it. Isn’t that clear from the pile of software boxes in our homepage picture?”

3. Simple, clearly labeled top or side navigation with one- or two-word links in “customer language” to key pages on the site — and a link that gets you back to the homepage from anywhere on the site.

  • “But we can’t call it ‘Our Story!’ We call it our ‘Organizational Mission and Vision Directive,’ and we want the link to be consistent.”
  • “We have 24 links because want people to be able to reach everything on the site directly from the front page.”
  • “Yes, I know all those pull-down menus with multiple hierarchies are a little difficult to use, but we had to get everything up there. What do you mean, the hierarchical menus break on ‘other browsers’? I thought everybody used Internet Explorer.”
  • “Oh, you can just click on the logo to get back to the home page.”

4. Icon links to your related social media pages or channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)

  • “Oh, we don’t believe in that social media stuff.”
  • “Oh, we don’t have time for that social media stuff.”
  • “Actually, we don’t know how to use all that social media stuff.”
  • “I doubt our customers use Facebook/Twitter/YouTube.”

5. All the necessary “small print” links at the bottom of the page (Privacy Policy, Site Map, Contact Us, etc.)

  • “We put them up in the top navigation. I guess that’s why it’s so crowded.”
  • “Oh, nobody needs a Site Map anymore.”

6. Brevity. On a multi-page website (as opposed to a blog), aim for fewer than 100 words on the homepage (about 75 is ideal) and no paragraphs at all. Think of the homepage as a lobby, and your goal is to get the customer into a showroom, a conference room, or someone’s office.

  • “If we don’t put it on the homepage, nobody will read it.”
  • “People can just scroll down two or three screens.”
  • “We didn’t want to add more pages to the website, so we put it on the homepage.”
  • “I guess four different embedded videos in four different formats probably is too much.”
  • “HR, Marketing, Sales, and the Board Office all insisted that their stuff go on the homepage.”
  • “We had new stuff to put up, but no one would authorize us to take the stuff that was already up there off the site.”

Have your home page navigation link clearly to:

1. A “catalog” or products page that lists all of your products and services (or categories of products and services) with a meaningful, iconic photo for each (or each category).

  • “We don’t have/can’t afford good photos.”
  • “Our different in-house groups can’t agree on which categories should be featured, or in what order.”
  • “Oh, we don’t have time to keep something like that updated. People should just email us and ask us what we have.”
  • “Our services can’t be illustrated by photos.”
  • “Our marketing team insisted on a separate section of the website for each product/service, all linked from the top-level navigation.”

2. A “buy” page where people can go to buy/order your products, find a dealer or store, or contact you immediately by phone to inquire about services.

  • “Oh, they can just fill out this web form and someone from our sales team will get back to them…in a week or so.”
  • “If people want to contact us they can click on the “Contact Us” link and fill out the web form.”
  • “We really don’t want people calling us.”
  • “That would mean we’d have to keep our distributor list up to date, wouldn’t it? We don’t have time.”

3. A “story” page where you tell your story, with professional, candid photos of your key people (founders, staff, or clients, etc.)

  • “I don’t think we want to feature one or two people at the exclusion of others. We have 200 people, and we’re a team!”
  • “We have our Mission and Vision Statement on the website, so that tells people what we do.”
  • “I think we have a studio picture of the Executive Director around here…it’s 8 years old, though. He doesn’t like having his picture taken.”
  • “The founder doesn’t usually talk about how he was inspired to form the company after he installed Internet technology for two provincial governments in the aftermath of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Gee, do you really think our customers would be interested in that?”

You get the idea. Many organizations have resource and communications issues that are barriers to effective website communication (and, often, barriers to business success — but that’s a different blog post). You can bring in top-level designers and still not get a great website if a company isn’t ready for website greatness.

NOTE: The tsunami story (details slightly tweaked to protect confidentiality) has to be my favorite FHE ever. A software company had asked my PR team to make their website more interesting to print and broadcast media reporters so they could get media coverage (including interviews with the founder) during the roll out of a new product. But the founder (an extremely handsome, outdoorsy-type dude) didn’t want to talk about anything except the relatively technical product and didn’t want a photo of himself on the website.



Is your website ready for 2011?

Six quick and easy tweaks that can take your website or blog from looking sloppy and out-of-date to savvy and professional.

The start of the new year is one of the best times to touch up your website, blog, or LinkedIn page. I’m not talking about a big, expensive overhaul or redesign: I’m talking about quick and easy tweaks that can take you from looking sloppy and out-of-date to savvy and professional.

This checklist will point you in the right direction:

  1. Check dates. If you’re talking about something happening in 2010 in the future tense, or if you’re featuring a 2010 event on your “upcoming events” page, fix it — fast.
  2. Watch out for use of the word “new.” My ebook Take Control of iPhone Basics came out in October, 2010. I can probably get away with calling it “new” for another or month or so and then it’s simply “my ebook.”
  3. Check photos. If your website has pictures of your storefront taken three years ago, when the awning was a different color and you had a different sign out front, it’s time to get a new photo. Same with your own photo — you may have been cuter and slimmer five years ago when it was taken, but everything from the haircut to what you were wearing is probably dated.
  4. Scrutinize your client list and list of recent projects. This is the time to add the new capabilities you offer, list your most recent clients, and perhaps remove from the list former clients under new management, or who no longer use your services.
  5. Clear out the clutter — especially in your sidebars. Check your blogroll or links lists to make sure these websites are still active (you may be astonished to find out how many changed URLs or ceased operations). If you’ve added links to several videos, books or images, take a hard look at the page and prune it down to the one or two you most want people to visit.
  6. Finally, test all your links. It’s the Internet; things change.

This is a “website.” At last.

It’s “website.” The 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has caught up with the digital age.

93/365 Dictionary and Chicago Manual of Style
Image by eiratansey via Flickr

Not a Web site, or a Website. It’s a website. The new, online, edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has spoken.

The 16th edition of the copy editors’ bible has caught up with the digital age. And who better to welcome it in than Jesse Vernon, the copy editor at the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger. If you read right to the end, you’ll find out about the paper’s in-house list of spellings for words they use that are, for some reason, not found in the dictionary.

“Sometimes, Chicago outright tells writers to make shit up,” Vernon explains.

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