Obstacles are a bad idea
"Hey I got an idea, let's place obstacles in the path of our website visitors." Sounds stupid doesn't it. Strangely, some companies deliberately do this.
A reader wanted to read the obituary of a colleague in the Austin newspaper. The newspaper website demanded her home address and phone number and other personal information before letting her read the obituary.
Seth Godin, the author, was attempting to register an item which he had recently purchased with the manufacturer's website. After Seth had dealt with four hurdles on the website, he came to a screen with the heading Step 5. This screen required him to enter something called the "Marketing Part Number." Fed up with the process, he quit the process.
A local programmer and I were discussing a problem which is inherent in Java of the potential of losing the java session id. I asked him whether or not it would be feasible to embed the id in a cookie. He explained to me that although it is indeed possible, yet because website visitors are afraid of cookies becaue they write info on the visitor's computer that he preferred to avoid using cookies. That is a very wise choice in my estimation.
Angie McKaig, wrote recently about those publishing companies which feel that they need to make the rules and that the public should follow their rules. The point of her article, and also of this one, is that trying to force the buying public to jump through your hurdles is self-destructive to your business.
I have had the experience of calling a customer service rep on the phone who basically told me, "If you are not willing to do it our way, there is nothing that we can do." However, after going over the rep's head I discovered that it was quite easy for the company to resolve the issue to my satisfaction.
A retail chain based out of a central western state has a chief customer service officer in the company headquarters who recently sent out a communique to the retail stores telling them to quit giving customers the address and telephone number of the company headquarters if they had service issues which the local store was not authorized to handle.
Your company's service mission should be to smooth the client's path and resolve the client's issues. Placing obstacles in a client's path is insane.
A reader wanted to read the obituary of a colleague in the Austin newspaper. The newspaper website demanded her home address and phone number and other personal information before letting her read the obituary.
Seth Godin, the author, was attempting to register an item which he had recently purchased with the manufacturer's website. After Seth had dealt with four hurdles on the website, he came to a screen with the heading Step 5. This screen required him to enter something called the "Marketing Part Number." Fed up with the process, he quit the process.
A local programmer and I were discussing a problem which is inherent in Java of the potential of losing the java session id. I asked him whether or not it would be feasible to embed the id in a cookie. He explained to me that although it is indeed possible, yet because website visitors are afraid of cookies becaue they write info on the visitor's computer that he preferred to avoid using cookies. That is a very wise choice in my estimation.
Angie McKaig, wrote recently about those publishing companies which feel that they need to make the rules and that the public should follow their rules. The point of her article, and also of this one, is that trying to force the buying public to jump through your hurdles is self-destructive to your business.
I have had the experience of calling a customer service rep on the phone who basically told me, "If you are not willing to do it our way, there is nothing that we can do." However, after going over the rep's head I discovered that it was quite easy for the company to resolve the issue to my satisfaction.
A retail chain based out of a central western state has a chief customer service officer in the company headquarters who recently sent out a communique to the retail stores telling them to quit giving customers the address and telephone number of the company headquarters if they had service issues which the local store was not authorized to handle.
Your company's service mission should be to smooth the client's path and resolve the client's issues. Placing obstacles in a client's path is insane.
posted by Shewmaker at 10:51 PM
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