Customers are a precious commodity in any business and keeping them is a small business owner's top priority — especially if you sell on the Web where you can lose a customer with a quick click of the mouse. You spend a lot of time attracting them and showing them your products and the last thing you want to do is to send them packing without buying.
Too many Web sites do just that, and it’s generally because the site designers don't focus their designs on what customers need, want and expect from a site.
Here are five common Web design assumptions guaranteed to turn away customers. I've also added tips to help you avoid making these mistakes on your Web site.
1. Assumption: Your customers are as excited about your Web technologies as you are.
Reality: No, they’re not.
You many think it's worth waiting a full minute for a Flash introduction showcasing your products to load, but it's a safe bet that your potential customers don't. Any barrier between the time a visitor arrives at your site and when she actually buys something provides an opportunity for that visitor to go elsewhere.
Barriers include Flash introductions (with or without a button that allows the visitor to skip the introduction) and video clips that have to be viewed to learn anything meaningful about a product.
Your typical customer is a busy person. She's visiting your site to find something that she wants, to make a quick purchase and to be on her way. Your site needs to facilitate this.
Wherever possible, avoid the temptation to enhance your site with an overabundance of technology. Instead, invest your money and effort into creating a good, clean and fast Web site that provides a good user experience.
2. Assumption: Customers will be happy to download additional applications to properly view your site.
Reality: No, they won’t.
Even the mere suggestion that they need special software to view your site will send visitors packing. It’s unreasonable to expect a customer to take the time to download and install special software just to view your site when 99 percent of other sites do not.
You need to make your Web site work for your customers so they can see it in whatever browser they happen to be using. Never code your site so that it’s only visible in certain browsers and never require visitors to download special software just to use your site.
3. Assumption: Your customers are prepared to jump through hoops to shop with you.
Reality: Um, seriously…they're not.
Some Web sites design the shopping experience like a scavenger hunt and, worse still, they make the game harder for existing customers to play than it is for new customers. These sites require you to login before you can purchase, and they hide the site login link where it is hard to find.
If you must require existing customers to login, make the login tools easy to find. Remind them how to proceed — tell them if they need to use an ID or if an email address is sufficient.
Don't make customers have to remember how to work your site. They shop at dozens of sites and don't share your dedicated focus and knowledge. They rely on you to make it easy for them buy.
Don’t force customers to shop online as they might in a physical store by meandering up and down the aisles. Designs like that don't work for shoppers who expect to type in a keyword or a product description to find what they want very quickly.
It’s up to you as the Web site designer to get customers to the product quickly and easily. If you don't, then there are other stores out there that will. Focus your design on getting the customer to the products they are looking for in as few clicks as possible.
4. Assumption: Customers like music, so crank up the volume good and loud.
Reality: Oh, no. Please don't.
The last thing customers who are at work and shopping on company time (or even their own time) want is your Web site music blasting out of their speakers. It's the best incentive a person has to click off your site — never to return.
And they don't have to be at work to be annoyed about sites that play music. At home your music may drown out something they were listening to. They can shut down your site, turn off their speakers or hunt around for your site's mute button. Either way they're angry, and that's not a great start to the shopping experience.
I don't know anyone who has ever complained about a Web site being too quiet for shopping, but know lots of people who hate sound on Web sites when it serves no valid purpose. You aren't creating a bricks-and-mortar store, and shoppers don't need piped music to encourage them to buy.
And before you protest that you'd never use sound on your Web site, remember that if you're serving up video advertising then these contribute sound and it is just as unwelcome as music.
Create a safe and pleasant environment for your customers. Never use sound on your site that they don't actively choose to hear.
5. Assumption: Your customers don’t mind if you promise everything and deliver nothing.
Reality: Yes, yes they do.
When customers buy a product they expect that, in return for taking their money, you will honor your side of the contract. They expect that the items are in stock and that you will ship when you promise to. When they fill in a form on your Contact Us page, they expect that you will deal with the problems they report or the requests they make.
Not following through on promises loses you customers. And worse still, these aren't just potential customers who cruised by your site and went somewhere else — these are customers who actually ordered or spent time asking questions about your products or who gave you their private information when you asked. When they don't come back to your site the loss is yours.
Luckily the solution here is simple. Reverse your approach — promise less and deliver much more. Make sure to always exceed customer expectations: promise to ship in 48 hours and do it in 24. Even if you can't ship for 48 hours, you're still meeting your promise. If you can't meet your promises then tell the customer promptly before they discover there's an issue.
Many of the things that drive customers away from your site are minor and can appear inconsequential. But the cumulative annoyances can add up and tip the balance between someone feeling comfortable buying from you or not.
Worse, the annoyance tally doesn't reset itself when someone enters your site. Instead each customer brings with them a day or week's worth of frustration and just one poorly located login button or one annoying video ad might be all it takes to send them packing.
Bottom Line: Your job as an online retailer is to create a simple, fast and efficient shopping experience for your customers. Focus on what they need from you, and not what you want to give them.
You'll find lots more software tips and tutorials from Helen Bradley in our Small Business Essential series, How-To With Helen Bradley.
Helen Bradley is a respected international journalist writing regularly for small business and computer publications in the USA, Canada, South Africa, UK and Australia. You can learn more about her at her Web site, HelenBradley.com
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