Recently in The Customer Experience Category

Last week I talked about the importance of developing new and unique features to make your forum community stand out above the crowd in order to win & retain visitors. But the story doesn't end with adding features, there's a lot on off the shelf forum software to customize and customize it you must. In the second part of this series I explain a few of the prime areas to change because at the end of the day to win the user over your site needs to get them back.

While watching football this morning I caught the tail end of a Circuit City commercial about a "One Price Promise". It's a pretty simple statement so what makes it interesting to me is that it's still an issue. Any store crazy enough to change their pricing in store and online is simply missing the boat. Sure your overhead online is lower but your customer doesn't care. Customers shop the channel they want whether it's because they still don't buy online [yes they do still exist - scary, I know] or because they want immediacy or just to put their hands on the product.

Furthermore if you're asking for less online you're encouraging people to abuse your price structure testing offline and buying online. Smartphones, iPhones, phone a friend, people don't stop looking online just because they aren't there anymore. When your prices don't jive the customer isn't going to be fooled and trying to deal with returns from overpricing doesn't help your overhead or brand reputation.

If you want to incentivize online sales make it easy to buy online. Offer simple to returns, useful sales suggestion tools and give out free shipping either without qualifiers or at low levels. These days everyone is online and offline so rather than trying to penalize people into a channel for margin reasons it's time to wake up and realize that multi-channel means getting customers wherever you can. Over charging them in one spot won't win them back in another.

We shouldn't need a commercial telling customers pricing will be fair.

Now back to the game...

I've written several times about the need for good error pages and messages but after a recent incident with a financial services provider it seems like a good time to bring up the issue again. Rather than go on and on about what you should do, here's a simple example of what you shouldn't along with suggestions for improving each step of the process.

Tonight while having dinner with my parents the conversation turned, as conversations often do, from something logical and straight forward towards some unknown tangent and finally settled on user reviews (odd, I know). After talking for a few minutes I made a point that seemed worth sharing beyond the dinner table. Phew... here we go.

What's the big deal with the internet? It's technology but that's not what makes unique. The printing press brought information to the masses - that was unique; radio changed the world when it let people hear shows and music in real time and TV let them see it. So what makes the internet so special, so important to have changed the way we think? The internet allowed the customer to talk back. The internet was the revolution, the internet changed us and how we think about the world but not because of technology, because of voice.

30 years ago if you had an issue with a company you talked to the company, maybe they helped you, maybe they didn't. Today everyone has a voice - the timid and the vocal - for better or worse everyone gets the chance to state their opinion and those opinions are visible to millions and will be archives presumably "forever". Have a good hotel stay? There's Trip Advisor. Dislike a restaurant? There's CitySearch or Yelp. Bad product? There are review sites, manufacturers, forums, blogs and a dozen other places to vent.

This may seem straight forward even obvious but it's still something so many companies fail to get. In the digital age fancy banners aren't what count, discounts don't close deals, and when we talk about "educating" the consumer the truth is consumers educate consumers, not brands.

So what's the takeaway? It's not just about getting your brand into "social", the truth is we're already there, the trick is figuring out how to deliver, listen and respond well enough that we as marketers, manufacturers, and providers, remain in a positive light.
More to follow soon.

Much like a retail store in the local mall decorates for the holiday season, your website's changes start with presentation as well and just as in retail there are a handful of must haves for every holiday site.

Part I of my series on getting your site ready for the Holiday Season.