February 8, 2009 72 Comments

Are You Two Timing Your Customers

Two Timing My tires needed air, so I pulled into a gas station and found this machine. There’s one air compressor, one hose, one nozzle, and two coin slots: one on the left, and one on the right.

Um.

So, as a customer, a user of this product, I stopped. I looked. I wondered what would happen if I picked the left slot, but that one ate my coins. I wondered if there was any discernible difference. I wondered what would happen if I put one coin in the left slot and two in the right.

Is your online presence like this? By offering people too many choices, are you causing an unintentional barrier? If you put your online presence all over the place, are you accidentally causing a queuing problem, because people aren’t sure which place to reach out to you? (I have this problem with Facebook: people message me there because they know my inbox is busy, but I only check Facebook mail once a week, because it’s 90% people spamming me about their dumb seminar.)

What about you? How simple is it to determine where to put my 75 cents?

Related posts:

  1. Make It Easy for Your Customers
  2. Podcasting for Business-Are Your Customers Worth It
  3. Do You Know Who Your Customers Are
  4. Blog Topics for Business to Business Customers

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  • http://www.danomi.com Young Che

    FACEBOOK?

  • Leo Dirr

    You’re right on this, Chris. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. But I’m not sure of the solution. What is the magic formula? How do you maximize social media for best results? Twitter, right now, seems to be king, especially if someone’s as sophisticated as Guy. So, I guess it would be wise to invest a big chunk of your “social” time there. But then what? And don’t tell me it depends on your goal or your business. Obviously it does. But I’d like to hear YOUR formula. I think that could be a whole new blog post.

  • Leo Dirr

    You’re right on this, Chris. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. But I’m not sure of the solution. What is the magic formula? How do you maximize social media for best results? Twitter, right now, seems to be king, especially if someone’s as sophisticated as Guy. So, I guess it would be wise to invest a big chunk of your “social” time there. But then what? And don’t tell me it depends on your goal or your business. Obviously it does. But I’d like to hear YOUR formula. I think that could be a whole new blog post.

  • http://www.mdurwin.com Michael Durwin

    Sounds like the company who built the pump didn’t have atone with user experience knowledge, and decided not to think about use case scenarios.

  • http://www.mdurwin.com Michael Durwin

    Sounds like the company who built the pump didn’t have atone with user experience knowledge, and decided not to think about use case scenarios.

  • http://www.bestwebimage.com/archives/the-entropy-factor/ Rob

    Classic Entropy Factor

  • http://www.bestwebimage.com/archives/the-entropy-factor/ Rob

    Classic Entropy Factor

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  • http://www.aicreative.com/ Angelika Ilina

    Everyone is different – some people prefer to call, some to e-mail, some to text message, some to send a message via Facebook, etc. And even people’s age doesn’t play a big role – it’s not only teenagers that prefer to text – many in their 30′s and 40′s do, too.

    So, you almost can’t have too many options to cater to the way people prefer to respond or communicate. That’s why direct response ads always include at least 3 ways to contact – phone, mail, and web site. And these ads have been consistently tested and proven to result in more sales.

  • http://www.aicreative.com/ Angelika Ilina

    Everyone is different – some people prefer to call, some to e-mail, some to text message, some to send a message via Facebook, etc. And even people’s age doesn’t play a big role – it’s not only teenagers that prefer to text – many in their 30′s and 40′s do, too.

    So, you almost can’t have too many options to cater to the way people prefer to respond or communicate. That’s why direct response ads always include at least 3 ways to contact – phone, mail, and web site. And these ads have been consistently tested and proven to result in more sales.

  • http://www.roundpeg.biz Roundpeg

    Like you I have profiles on mulitple sites, but am only active on a few. The way I manage it is to post notes in my FaceBook and Plaxo profile, which say.. I don’t check this very often, if you want to reach me go to my Twitter.com/roundpeg or smallerindiana profile

  • http://www.roundpeg.biz Lorraine Bal

    Like you I have profiles on mulitple sites, but am only active on a few. The way I manage it is to post notes in my FaceBook and Plaxo profile, which say.. I don’t check this very often, if you want to reach me go to my Twitter.com/roundpeg or smallerindiana profile

  • http://blog.mediaminister.co.uk/ Tracey “Biz Doctor” Dooley

    For me, Eyebee, Justin Levy, Stephanie Valentine and Angelika Ilina hit the nail on the head…

    Try to keep things as simple as possible, make sure all your ‘online gateposts’ clearly signal back to your main website’s contact page, or use Gmail for processing everything…

    Also, because people seem to try to satisfy all needs for all eventualities, I think it’s better to have a clear idea of your ideal client/customer and design your ‘contact marketing’ around that one person. If that makes sense. ;-)

    Need coffee!

  • http://blog.mediaminister.co.uk/ Tracey “Biz Doctor” Dooley

    For me, Eyebee, Justin Levy, Stephanie Valentine and Angelika Ilina hit the nail on the head…

    Try to keep things as simple as possible, make sure all your ‘online gateposts’ clearly signal back to your main website’s contact page, or use Gmail for processing everything…

    Also, because people seem to try to satisfy all needs for all eventualities, I think it’s better to have a clear idea of your ideal client/customer and design your ‘contact marketing’ around that one person. If that makes sense. ;-)

    Need coffee!

  • christine lazar

    I like it when I need air in my tires, it says, Pay $$ OR go ask clerk for Complimentary Air….. so I don’t pay….. unless they are closed. Of course it is a local store, and they mostly know me, as I buy my gas there. So is it customer service…customer perk??? oh well, as long as it works when I need it.

  • christine lazar

    I like it when I need air in my tires, it says, Pay $$ OR go ask clerk for Complimentary Air….. so I don’t pay….. unless they are closed. Of course it is a local store, and they mostly know me, as I buy my gas there. So is it customer service…customer perk??? oh well, as long as it works when I need it.

  • http://openmode.ca Malcolm Bastien

    Nice. The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz is a book that covers stuff like this, but those ideas are not being applied to the web and social networks/media by anyone yet.

  • http://openmode.ca Malcolm Bastien

    Nice. The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz is a book that covers stuff like this, but those ideas are not being applied to the web and social networks/media by anyone yet.

  • http://modestadventurer.com Traveller_Adventure

    Very very interesting post..I like this one. gotta bookmark this one.

    Cheers,
    Blog Review

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  • http://www.perfectoled.com digital billboard

    really? that is nice!

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