Make It Easy for Your Customers

ceb — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:32:52 +0000

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.

What Do YOU Think People Want From Your Site

ceb — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:30:57 +0000

Forever the thinker, Jeremiah Owyang posted about the future of corporate websites. He cites Kristie Connor and Christopher Smith, who won a contest for their efforts to describe such. It’s a great question. I’d recommend reading Jeremiah’s post and commenting on that, but if you want to talk about it more, it’s a great question.

People Want Information

Not marketing. When I go to Staples.com, it’s because I need a store locator, or the price of a USB drive. I don’t mind being sold potential values and bargains around the information I seek, but I sure don’t want to hear marketing-ese about whatever you think the summer value plan is going to be.

People Want Simple

When I go to GM.com, they give me three easy choices right off the bat: corporate info, vehicle info, and “experience GM,” whatever that is. That’s not bad, because they slot me pretty quickly, but the risk there is that the site is static, and definitely “cold” in color and experience.

People Want Connection

Want the real secret magic? People want to feel “seen.” There are ways to do that. One is something we do all the time on blogs: we comment back. Another is through polite (!!!) use of cookies to remember that you like things set up a certain way when you are visiting.

Further, people would like to connect with the people at an organization, not just through forms and chutes, but in as many ways as they can conceive. Know who does this well? Sun? Go to http://blogs.sun.com, and you’ll see that there are blogs to suit most every taste. That means, there are conversations to be had at lots of levels. Cisco and some other great tech companies are doing it. Are retail or consumer companies ready for this?

What do You Think?

You travel the web all the time. You need information from various companies. You visit sites to buy things, to learn about things, to make decisions. What do you think people want from your site?

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.