E-Holiday Tips

Quick Tips to Check, Fix, and Remedy Any Website in the Next 30 days

After thousands of visits to hundreds of Web sites and dozens of focus groups with both savvy and e-customers, Ron Zemke and Tom Connellan know what works and what doesn't. Here are eleven things you can do in the next thirty days that are proven to boost traffic, increase sales, and enhance customer loyalty -- just in time for the holidays!

1. Put your contact information on every screen of your site.
Contact information should include:

• Toll-free number
• Corporate address
• Product Return address
• Web site address

Lack of this information not only irritates customers, but it also erodes their trust.

2. Staff up to manage calls.
Don't make the erroneous assumption that just because you have a Web site your call volume will decrease. Just the opposite is true. Many firms find that calls actually increase. If your Web site has missing or difficult-to-find information, calls go up noticeably. Be sure your staff is trained and equipped to answer questions about your order procedures, your products, shipping and returns, and any other information a caller might want. Consider having CSR access 24/7 from Halloween through New Year's Day. Make sure your staff is trained in both phone and Internet skills.

3. Think big pictures, big print.
If your product line requires that photos be available, make sure they're large, clearly focused and quick loading. Item numbers and descriptions need to be legible and detailed. HINT: Consider having your descriptions load first, enabling the art to come in a little slower, and appear just when the customer is ready for it.

4. Plan for the flood.
If you're a B2C, get ready for the holiday season now. It's probably your last chance to lock in customers. Miss this one and you're history. Forecasters are predicting millions of Internet shoppers this season. Be prepared. How many hits can your site handle in an hour? Quadruple it. What is your contingency plan if you exceed capacity? Have subcontractors ready and waiting to step in and get you going again.

5. Deliver, deliver, deliver.
If you burn consumers just one time, they're probably clicking somewhere else now. Consumers must know you can be trusted to deliver the products they ordered on time and undamaged. Check out the capability of your fulfillment houses and shipping vendors. Go beyond the promises and look at their systems. Get firm commitments. Your return business success depends on it.

7. Make return policies easy and efficient.
Consumers need to know they can return a product that doesn't fit, is the wrong color, or simply isn't what they wanted. If you can't offer that service to them, you don't deserve their business. State your return policy up front and honor it - without reservation. Do not make consumers go through hoops and hurdles to get their money back. Include return labels; accept returns at a brick and mortar store; give a credit refund over the phone. Do whatever you can to keep your customer coming back to your site over and over again.

8. De-clutter your site.
Consumers shop the Net for convenience. If they have to muddle through heavy graphics and useless information, they'll bolt. Make it easy! Your home page should include:

• Contact information
• Product search information
• Shipping/return policies

The more cluttered your site, the longer it takes pages to download. You've got only eight seconds to get a page downloaded before customers start to wander elsewhere.

9. Pitch the clicks.
Remember, the real Internet pros can satisfy their customer in no more than 4 clicks or less from transaction beginning to end. If it takes more than 4 clicks to complete any transaction on your site, get the extra clicks out of there.

10. Define the customer experience you want people to have.
This is what it's all about. Site design, number of clicks, return policies - they're all about creating an exceptional customer experience. If you don't document the memory you want your customer to have at the end of the process, nothing else you do is more than just a random event.

11. Create a service recovery system.
Problems are going to happen. Customers understand that errors occur, but if they experience a dazzling solution in response to a complaint, they're even more loyal than if they had never experienced the problem. The key word here is system. Recovery cannot be a haphazard event. It needs to be a proactive, comprehensive approach to dealing with customer problems. Bottom line: Know what you're going to do in the event things go wrong.