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Think of all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of your my favorite store, go-green awareness issues, charity drives that “give back” to the community for every purchase made, TV screens playing music videos or news as you wait in line, and the list goes on.
None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that that we are valued as a customer. Most times we are probably not even be aware of these things on a conscious level. But the effect shows as we have a tendency to patron these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.
In leafing through my personal mail last week, I was pleased to come across a small, hand-addressed piece. This clearly was not a bill, a lame 10% off coupon or a credit card offer…what I was about to open was going to be something fun to read from an actual human being, and probably one that I cared about! I tore it open, excited.
As I flipped open the card, designed with a lovely picture of a mountain landscape, I began to read the note.
“Thank you so much for shopping with us. We appreciate your business and do hope you are enjoying your new sofa. Sincerely, Marge”
Almost exactly four years ago, my husband and I decided to check out some new cars at one of the dealerships in town. We had no intentions of buying a new car, but we were just curious what was available and what prices were like. Six hours after walking on the lot, we were driving off in a car that we were never interested in buying. We left the dealership that Friday at midnight, and when we got home, we were completely baffled by what had just happened.
Along with the About Us page, your Contact Us page is one of the most important and crucial pages on your site to get right. In fact, the Contact Us page could be considered the absolutely most important page. Even if the rest of your site succeeds in the goals, if visitors fail to find the information they need to contact you then you will bring their shopping experience to a screeching halt.
Shoppers are often hampered if they don’t feel they can get a hold of a real person or are limited in their contact options. With all other areas of the site working, a bad contact us page may cause someone to think twice about purchasing with you altogether.
In Part 1 of this saga, I used my recent experience with a local optometrist to outline five tips for good customer service. To sum them up again:
Follow up with the customer when there is a problem – unforeseen or NOT
When the customer is unhappy about one thing, and something else unforeseen goes wrong, do something, anything to make them feel better. In the post I suggested a gift card, even a hand written paper note would be nice
Don’t tell the customer it is their fault when the product is not right
Assure the customer the problem will be fixed
Refer the customer elsewhere if you can’t provide the service
I recently noticed the newest selling tactic for major technology vendors: vending machines. Companies have begun selling equipment like iPods and cell phones in vending machines in major European hotels and airports. I can’t imagine myself using my credit cart to purchase an iPod in a hotel, but I suppose there must be some sort of target that will.
The bottom line with these machines is it allows customers to quickly and confidently purchase tech marvels with no strings attached. This is often difficult to find in the current e-commerce landscape. Many sites require me to register prior to checkout or ask me to sign in (to which I never remember my info from four years ago). All this to say that e-commerce web sites haven’t always lived up to a “quick and easy” transaction.
I have a story to tell. One that has been burning a hole in my stomach for six months now. That’s right, six months. Count them with me February, March, April. May, June, and July. Oh but wait, this story hasn’t been burning a hole in my stomach, it’s been burning my eyes. I’ve been waiting six months for glasses I can see out of. (The glasses that I could see clearly out of have been at the bottom of Donnor Lake for almost a year now, but that is another story, and it has nothing marketing related ….)
Here are a few lessons for all the businesses that provide product or service to the customer. It is a rather long story so I am going to split it into two parts …
Viewers can smell a rat. They know the stock photos on your site aren’t your employees, and they can tell if you have ulterior motives behind your P.R. messages.
I just watched a user-created video that’s gone viral on Youtube. It’s a video filmed by a passenger on a flight that’s been grounded for hours by a report of lightning. He storms up to the cockpit and berates the pilots for a while- demanding to be let off the plane and claiming that he’s even called his congressman to issue a complaint. From what I can gather so far, most of the media outlets have covered this as your rank and file “David and Goliath” angry-consumer video, but the public seems to differ. Usually these kind of videos incite public outcries- but this one is going in reverse.
Update: I wanted to provide a quick update to my last post regarding the Blockbuster Total Access email blunder. I just received another email from them for yet another coupon. But this time they got it right. Look what was sitting in the middle of the email:
Blockbuster is getting closer to creating near-perfect customer service. But they are not there yet….
I am going to have to second Stoney’s post about Blockbuster Total Access taking another misstep because something similar just happened to me. I joined an online forum and received a crazy no help welcome email. But first a little background to explain why I wanted to join this yet unnamed forum.
Living in Reno NV, the Angora Fire that is burning up the South Lake Tahoe area is dominating the news coverage. I happened to be up there at South Lake rock climbing this past Sunday when the fire broke out. We had no idea there was a fire burning until we drove down (West) Luther Pass on Highway 89 towards Highway 50. We didn’t pull over with all the “looky-loo” rubber neckers who were gawking at the Angora Fire. We just drove on, continuing our way toward home. The chaos had not yet ensued and traffic moved smoothly along North bound Highway 50 … South bound was not so smooth but that isn’t part of my story. We stopped on the Nevada side of South Lake Tahoe (it is a village) for a cold brewski before making our way down the final push to the valley floor. During this time I received a call from home on my cell phone.
Hire Stoney deGeyter or the rest of the Pole Position Marketing team for your in-house training, conference or other search marketing events. Contact us for more information.
Think of all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of 
None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that that we are valued as a customer. Most times we are probably not even be aware of these things on a conscious level. But the effect shows as we have a tendency to patron these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.
Along with the About Us page, your Contact Us page is one of the most important and crucial pages on your site to get right. In fact, the Contact Us page could be considered the absolutely most important page. Even if the rest of your site succeeds in the goals, if visitors fail to find the information they need to contact you then you will bring their shopping experience to a screeching halt.
