Brands develop their name through quality. Whether it is a product or a service, if your experience in using it was a pleasant or an excellent one, you are likely to return and recommend it to your friends and acquaintances. Word of mouth is a great way to promote your business and satisfied customers are the equivalent of walking and talking advertisements.
It’s True: First Impressions Count
The first impression a customer has of your product is always an important one. Often, this is the time when his decision is half-way formed on whether it is worth his time and money buying it. Today, with more and more businesses conducted online, a website is usually a customer’s first exposure to a product that he wants or needs and he searches the internet to canvass for different brands. Thus, a website carries a lot of weight in convincing potential customers to patronize your product. And usability plays a very significant role in giving them a pleasant experience when they visit your site. A website with a clear description of the products or services it offers, their prices and contact details will most certainly keep visitors glued to it than one with poor quality pictures, a generic representation and no map or contact details.
The Broader View
Usability and user experience are different but equally important features of a website. Good usability gives visitors to the site a positive impression of the product since it allows easy access and navigation especially to the pages where they make the purchase or sign up for subscription. It also minimizes getting stuck at certain points which lead to dissatisfaction. With good usability, visitors leave your site feeling good and liking your product.
User experience comes in after potential customers leave your site and turn off the computer. User experience extends its focus beyond the site to everything that is related to their visit.
At this point, all further communication can either reinforce the good image they have of your product or turn them off and make them look for another brand. These points of communication are the emails, packing slips, response to phone calls and emails. They can make or break the relationship you have begun to build with customers.
So what do you have to do to make sure customers have a good experience from beginning to end? By paying attention to your contact processes and content and periodic check of user experience, you will know where the weak links of communication are. Test runs will show you the whole process of contact from the point of view of a new potential customer and a returning one.
Monitoring all the touch points is easier said than done. For example, you have to know the contents of all communication sent out to customers and purportedly coming from you. One way to do this is to make a test purchase on your site and see what emails you receive as a result of that purchase. One company was shocked to read an email from their system and no one had known about or approved it.
What To Watch For with Your Online Brand
There are elements that can boost a sale or stop a deal from closing. Crucial areas that need to be checked on are the following:
- All automated emails, their content and date sent
- Packaging, letters and flyers
- How common tasks are done
- All advertising and promotions
- Call center responses
- After-sales service including dealing with customers’ mistakes
Checkpoints
For communications:
- Are they easily understood?
- Are they open to misinterpretation?
- Do they contain all the needed information?
- Does your brand present a good image?
- Is the message on all communication consistent? Do they have the same information as what you give out in your call centers, emails and on your site?
For Processes:
- Can they be done in the easiest way possible?
- Is there a difference between what was planned and what occurs upon implementation?
- Are the customers taught how to solve the most common problems?
- Is the process rational?
- What can you do to help?
Any interaction you have with customers is like a conversation about your product. Consistency and a good understanding about your product throughout the conversation is the best way to make them return and talk to other people about their experience.
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a good read, thank you