We all hate some companies. What a lot of these have in common is a very poor customer experience, which shades into disrespect - they could make life easier for clients, but they do the opposite.
A lot of websites make the same mistake; they try to meet too many other objectives and forget customer focus. It's simple to spot when this has happened: step through the important use cases and note what proportion of the things you do and see on screen are not strictly necessary.
Read this post for more: "Wake Up: Your Customer Does Not Want to Be Your Friend", by J-P De Clerck, conversionation.
Look at your online marketing budget: without a doubt, the main focus will be on generating traffic and communicating (about what you do). How much do you spend on improving conversions (and thus by definition the customer experience)? I bet it’s a fraction of the budgets for reach and traffic.
In fact, according to Bryan Eisenberg, for every 95USD businesses spend on generating traffic, they only spend 1 (yes, one) on conversion optimization, as you can read in a Smart Insights post I did a while back, called ‘How can we change the traffic-building mindset?’. How much do you spend on content that people want as compared to content YOU think you have to create? How much do you spend on listening, in comparison to ‘talking’?
The customer and user experience, in which content, usability and conversion play a key role, are still very poorly treated. Go and see how much you spend on customer service and compare that with your efforts just to have fans on Facebook. How hard do you try to put the customer and his needs at the center of the marketing universe? Really? Check how streetwise you are and ‘go out on the proverbial street’.
Forget traffic, beautiful pictures, nifty Flash intros, funny but irrelevant campaigns, what you have to say, acquiring lots of brand advocates and your beautiful self for a while and focus on what your customers really want. I bet it’s anything but being your friend!
Yes, I know. Relationships and branding are important. Your CEO really wants a colorful site that says how cool he or his business is, you need to fill the pipeline, and you are judged by irrelevant quantitative rather than qualitative data.
However, no matter how you look at it: your CEO above all wants results. Focusing on the customer is the “conditio sine qua non” to achieve just that.
So, show some respect! R-E-S-P-E-C-T-
Click the TotalMarketing tag for related posts.
Image from "The Cluttered Web" by Entrepreneurial Kevin
