Make It Easy for Your Customers

October 16, 2008 · Comments

juryduty I just had to postpone my jury duty date, because it turns out that I’ll be in Canada on the day they had me scheduled. I checked on the letter they mailed me, and it said that if I needed to postpone for any reason, I could go to http://www.massjury.com/juror and take care of that.

You have no idea how easy it was. And the last part was the best: I just had to type my name into a box (like you do to sign up anywhere), and click a checkbox that said “this counts as an electronic signature.”

Less than three minutes and I was done. And this was the state government. First, thanks Massachusetts Court System for having a simple way to do things. (By the way, our Registry of Motor Vehicles is fairly easy to navigate, too).

Second, if your system for doing things is harder than the state government, I’d reconsider.

Example: don’t EVER make me have to resort to paper to do things. If the government COURT SYSTEM can accept a checkbox as an electronic signature, then you should be able to, as well.

Just thinking, while I wait for a few more shoes to fall.

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  • Thanks for sharing. I have heard so many horror stories about jury duty that I have always assumed that it would be a nightmare to try to postpone or cancel. It's nice to hear about a positive experience.
  • Hi Chris,

    Thanks for posting on this positive experience. Mass Jury commissioner Pam Wood deserves kudos for not only making it simple but also for reading blogs and commenting on them :)

    Thanks,

    Shashi
  • Chris, perfect post about keeping it simple. One time, I had a customer tell me they did use email marketing and I could sign-up at their website. After 10 minutes of searching (if I hadn't wanted to receive their emails to critique them I never would have stayed that long), I called her and expressed my frustration. She navigated me to 3 or 4 pages deep into their site and then I scrolled to the bottom of the page. Wow!

    Speaking of that, I probably should go check our site as well! Thanks for the prompting!
  • Chris,

    Glad to hear you had a great experience with massjury.com and kudos to Pam Wood and her team for getting it right!

    Your experience brings to mind something I've tried to push with employers and clients over the years: the customer experience is a major part of your brand--maybe the only part, as far as some customers are concerned (Amazon, anyone?).

    A shiny identity & logo are nice, but I'll take ugly with great service over them any time.

    Not that massjury.com is ugly, but you know what I mean :-]
  • I had a great online experience on the NYC Gov website this morning. Silly me didn't pay close enough attention to the signs in the Little Italy section of NYC so I parked in a commercial loading/unloading spot and was subsequently gifted with a $95 ticket. Granted, we had just finished enjoying my favorite cannolis on Mulberry Street and I was feeling pretty on top of the world, so it put a bit of a damper on an otherwise happy day.

    I grudgingly logged onto the website today to pay the ticket and was surprised how easy it was to find my violation in the system, and how quickly I was able to pay it. It was such a swift transaction, I was pleasantly surprised.

    I never thought I'd come out of paying a parking ticket feeling satisfied with the experience.
  • Thanks for the kudos! We worked very hard to make this website as user-friendly as possible, and it's great to hear the positive feedback. Good luck with your jury duty -- based on the feedback we get, I'll bet if you're lucky enough to be impanelled on a jury, you'll find it to be a very interesting and empowering experience.

    Pam Wood, Jury Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
  • Well here's a scary hot flash: in New Jersey most appellate work done by contract attorneys is done via snail mail and worse. Appendix materials have to be numbered by hand, invoices have to be written up on carbon! paper forms, briefs may not be filed (even with a protected/locked PDF format).

    But, hey, paying NJ state taxes takes only a few clicks online. Go figure.
  • This is so true, I love how such a simple example can turn into a lesson for all of us. I released my first ebook today called "Make Money Commenting" and I am learning how to make it as easy and simple for people as possible. Thanks for the tips
  • amazing right? had the same experience with NY DMV and the VA for a an elderly neighbor.

    it's about time.

    now can we talk about the docs office without a computer that i visited awhile back. he was young, an up-and-coming star specialist in an upscale NY suburb and he told me it was because he did not need one.

    Ummmm... yes you friggin do! big bad insurance co. does not want to FAX the referral dr. dinosaur.

    oops sorry, too much rage.
  • It's becoming increasingly frustrating to deal with (usually government, but not always) systems that are not yet converted to paperless. Here in Silicon Valley, for instance, we can pay our property taxes online, but they charge us extra for that! Imagine, a streamlined process that eliminates paper and labor (opening an envelope, processing a check, etc.) and the county charges extra! Maddening.
  • Chuck Smith
    I had jury duty last year, and did postpone once, and I agree that the system in Massachusetts is great. Now, if they could all coordinate and work on making all of their systems as easy to use and navigate. There's lots of great info on the Mass.gov site, but it's somewhat difficult to find it.

    Making the systems easy for the user should be job one in designing or revamping the site. I don't think a lot of companies take the user into account when doing design - they just want what's "cool" and think like engineers or programmers.

    After spending the past two days at the New Marketing Summit, I'm much more committed to figuring out how to find my company's customers (i.e. where they hang out online), asking them what they need from my company to be more successful, and then delivering it in a way that's easy for them to consume.

    Thanks!
    Chuck
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