Wandy's Blog

Probing your Customer Service Proposition

2008-07-03T17:01:00Z

The report on the top 50 UK retailers customer services proposition is still in progress. By progress I mean that all the criteria for evaluating their proposition has been recorded and I now need to review the findings to make some sense of it.

In the meantime as a light aperitif here's a preamble around the all-important Customer Services call-to-action. This simple link has stood firm during the past decade, its presence providing reassurance for millions of online consumers.

The labelling and positioning of this call-to-action reveals a great deal about a retailers attitude towards customer services. Does the site scream we're here to help you or is it a faint whisper?

Most retailers position a Customer Services link prominently in the page header. If a customer has a question or needs further information then these sites offer a quick and easy way in to Customer Services to find an answer. If you make a user work to answer a query then you'll start to drain their goodwill until the point that they tune out completely and go to another site. OK - there is no guarantee that once in the Customer Services section their query will get answered and I will be looking in to this in a future study.

86 percent of the top 50 UK retailers provided a Customer Services link of some sort. Of the minority that didn't 63 percent displayed a prominent phone number on every page. This was more common with the holiday companies and airlines such as Thomsonfly, Thomson Holidays and British Airways.

Only Debenhams and River Island tucked their services call-to-action below the fold, down in the page footer. You only need to sit in user test sessions to realise that users expect to find the Customer Services call-to-action in the header. More and more retailers are making the footer a more useful navigation schema and so in time Customer Services may migrate to the footer but years of customer expectations are not changed overnight.

Contact Us is making the footer its home, however - 58 percent of retailers provided links to Contact Details. 63 percent of these were in the footer.

Online users have always been impatient but recent reports suggest we are getting even more impatient. Users want to complete their task and leave, so any purchase inertia such as slow page load or hunting for information contributes to the abandonment rate, the holy grail of all metrics.

Debenhams not only place their Customer Services link below the fold but their contact phone number is 3 clicks away from any page. Not being able to contact Customer Services is regularly cited as the top non-cost related reason for customers abandoning a purchase yet Debenhams make it hard for customers to contact Customer Services.

Disappointingly only 32 percent of retailers displayed a phone number either in the footer or header, although 78 percent were only one click away from a phone number.

I've mentioned the positioning of the Customer Services call-to-action but what about the labelling?

Help and Customer Services account for 70 percent of the call-to-actions but there are a handful of other labels used. These alternatives contained either the word support or help so retailers did not deviate much from the familiar terms.

Who were the Winners and Losers?

Play as always show their commitment to user experience with links to Customer Services in the header and primary navigation, and a phone number in the footer.

Easyjet take the award for the most muddled execution of Customer Services by somewhat confusingly placed their help link within Contact Us. And it wasn't even prominent.

Hopefully my next post with provide a deeper insight in to the findings from this study. I have screengrabs of all the Customer Services links for all the retailers in this study and will upload them to Flickr when I've got time - I'll then post a link.

Listening to: Moonbeams by Throw Me The Statue

Someone to talk to – pt I

2008-06-23T21:41:00Z

Momentum is building for self-service technologies in the real world. Consumers are adopting these self-service interactions and interacting less with in-store customer services. Online it's a different story as online shoppers want someone to talk to.

In Future Now's 2007 Retail Customer Experience Survey, they recommend implementing a "visible phone number for questions and problems" to improve customer service.

Similarly, e-Consultancy wrote in a recent article that “a visible phone number is absolutely essential for answering any queries, as well as being a mark of trust for any e-commerce site.“

Not being able to contact customer services is regularly cited as the top non-cost related reason for customers abandoning a purchase. Yet despite customers want for an immediate communication channel many retailers fail to provide either a phone number or a chat applet, and take it for granted that there is customer confidence in an established retailer.

If customers have a product question that they cannot answer online then they will either look for a contact number or shop elsewhere. The following are all too common user comments:-

“There must be a number for me to call and a person to speak with who can answer my question.”

"I have had issues so looked for a telephone number... those with them got my order where as the majority that only would talk to me by email lost my business to one of their competitors”

“I personally won’t buy from a store that does not have visible contact information.”

The jury may be out on whether established mainstream retailers need to pimp credibility indicators to same extent as their lesser established competitors to improve shoppers confidence in their web site.

"The phone number? I've never tried looking for it. But lets face it, you would automatically have consumer confidence in an established site such as Amazon wouldn't you?"

Whatever the verdict retailers should do whatever they can to bolster confidence and create a sense of trust and credibility for consumers.

A survey by PayPal revealed that “16 percent of consumers didn’t pay for items because they could not contact customer support to answer questions.”

Why phone numbers? Customers want direct and immediate communication channels and slow email responses create customer dissatisfaction. Email response times are improving but there is still some way to go to restore customer confidence to using other communication channels in favour of the phone.

Customers have questions that need answering. This could be around product specifications or delivery/ returns. No matter how much a retailer tries to answer everything in their help pages or frequently answered questions, customers will always have some questions they can’t find an answer to. If you make them work to contact you then you’ll lose them.

Yet despite what the industry knows about the impact of contact details on abandonment rates many retailers make it hard for customers to contact customer services. Some retailers think customers have nothing better to do than hunt around for a contact number....wrong. Abandonment rate is the Holy Grail that retailers seek to plug but many shoppers are going AWOL because retailers fail to provide easy access to contact data.

Providing an easily accessible phone number also tells your customers that you are willing to help. Tucking it away, 5 pages deep tells a very different story. An alternative or complementary services tool is a chat applet which also offers an immediate communication channel - many retailers are reaping the results of technologies such as Live Person to realise significant improvements to their conversion rate.

The irony is that many customers don't want to phone customer services but just want to know that there is a real person live to speak to should they need to.

“Personally, I always look for a phone number on a website before purchasing, though would rarely actually call it. I would agree it's a trust thing and that really there's no excuse these days not to have one.”

Online consumers that abandon are potential customers who are willing to buy – don’t give them a reason to abandon.

In someone to talk to – pt II I will present a summary of the findings from a study of how the top 50 UK Retailers rank on providing sufficient contact information. You’ll find out which retailers are getting it right and which retailers don’t mind their customers shopping elsewhere.

Listening to: Loveless by My Bloody Valentine

The face must fit

2008-04-18T15:02:00Z

From user research and other customer insight I create the primary persona, Siobhan, a fictional portrait of a customer for a high street retailer I am currently working with. As she slowly comes to life I create a vivid image of this fictional character .

It isn't easy sourcing the right photo to reflect the age, gender, and other personal traits that describe this fictional character. Persona's must be believable to be accepted and photos that don't fit can be the greatest barrier to a persona's adoption. All the good work put in to creating a persona can be undone if the photo is not an accurate image of this fictional character. Even the expression must be believable.

I have several golden rules when it comes to finding a suitable photo. Never use a photo of a family, friend or anyone you know as this will create a barrier to adopting the persona. Never reuse a photo for another persona for the same reason.

So where do I get my photos from?

Flickr, Google Image Search, professional image libraries and dating sites. I might step slightly outside copyright laws by using photos from these sources without permission from the creator but this minor infringement is for the good of user centric design (ahem...)

I would like to think that someone has used my portrait as the face of their persona and that my photo has helped contribute towards the development of an optimised user interface.

Some image libraries offer faceted browsing. This is also common with dating sites which help lonely soles to find their perfect partner. But whilst this helps refine my search they still fall somewhat short of helping me to find that perfect photo match. Getty Images allows me to refine by gender, ethnicity, age etc But I am unable to refine by personal or physical traits. The limitation is not with the technologies but the amount of metadata associated with each photo.

Photo composite software is possibly the way forward. Instead of searching image libraries to find a match against specific traits, photo composite software allows me to select facial features and then enhance the photo by changing hair colouring, adding facial markings, age progression and skin colouring etc Facial composite software have an enormous database of facial features. But the software I have used only creates near-photo quality images. The fact that they are not photo quality hinders adoption. I can't help but feel that every image I create looks like a candidate for Crime Watch. The good news is that photo composite software avoids any privacy issues so if anyone can recommend photo realistic photo composite software then please do.

I always use photo realistic images and where possible use full-length and not headshots, as they convey so much more additional information. The clothes, posture and expression tell a lot about someone such as their career, attitude or socioeconomic status.

The drawback of trawling non-professional photos is that quality can be a major issue. I used to create persona's in PowerPoint or Illustrator and deliver a single-page A4 printout. Lots of words with a small passport-sized photo.

I don't create persona's simply because the client has paid for this. I create persona's because they sit at the heart of every design decision. So I need to do everything possible to get these persona's accepted. Poor image quality limits how I can use the photo to ensure adoption. There is nothing more frustrating than to source the perfect image only to be limited by a 50 x 50 pixel image which isn't suitable for print.

Once a persona is created there are many ways to improve adoption and bring the persona's to life. I’ll cover different ways to deliver persona's (persona mood boards, masks, cardboard cut-outs, role playing etc) in a future post. But if the photograph doesn't fit then persona adoption will be much harder.

If you have any recommendations of image libraries, sites or software for finding/ creating a matching photo please let me know.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience then we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: Harps Old Master by Phelan Sheppard

Conchango’s motley crew take on Retail Week 2008

2008-03-12T12:42:00Z

Today is day 1 of the Retail Week Conference 2008. I arrived in time for the breakfast briefing, sporting a Conchango t-shirt. My trim figure barely made a dent in the XL Conchango t-shirt leaving plenty of room for a couple of colleagues to squeeze in. After a much-needed caffeine injection and over-indulgence in fresh croissants I brushed aside any early morning cobwebs. I was now ready share my retail and user experience wisdom with MD's and CEO's from some of the UK's largest retailers.

With myself, Dan and Justin making up a follicly-challenged trio resembling the Mitchells of the Consultancy world, it took Richard D, Lynne and Nik to make us appear more Dynasty than Eastenders.

Image: Conchango's very own Mitchell family (below)

Image: Conchango's more glamorous consultants (below)

My t-shirt concerns were nothing compared to the horror on Nik’s face when he was presented with a medium slim-cut t-shirt. His generous frame squeezed inside this tight number made him look like he was heading for a night out at G.A.Y. (again)

Image: Nik camps it up (below)

So what are we doing at Retail Week and why are we sporting these Conchango branded t-shirts? Conchango is one of the key sponsors at Retail Week 2008. This event is a great opportunity to hear some of the highest caliber speakers in the UK retail market discuss those issues that retailers are facing in an increasingly competitive marketplace and how best to shape their business strategies. Our very own CEO, Mike Altendorf, is talking about the challenges of tomorrow. Catch his presentation about "Engaging the Facebook generation" on day 2 at 11.55.

Although I am looking forward to hearing Charlie Mayfield, Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, discuss brand loyalty and the closing-day Interview with Sir Stuart Rose, Chief Executive for Marks and Spencer, my challenge for today is to make up a 6-person team manning the Conchango stand and offer delegates an impromptu 30-minute eCommerce assessment . I’m representing the Experience arm of Conchango.

So what can I say about user experience that the delegates haven’t heard before? Perhaps nothing, but I’m not worried about repeating myself. If last years must-do experience enhancements are still not being implemented then they're worth saying again and again and again...

Many retailers still force their customers to register, fail to give customers reassurance at key times of their shopping experience or offer poor quality images and a few lines of uninspiring copy so that their customers have insufficient product data to make a purchase decision, and so much more. The list of barriers that retailers put up is endless and it’s these barriers areas that need to be addressed to rejuvenate flagging conversion rates.

I will repeat my usual mantra of simplifying the checkout process, displaying shipping details upfront, highly visible support options, improving findability, reinforcing trust and credibility before I even discuss the web 2.0 elements such as user generated content. For many retailers it's still about getting the basics right. My focus isn’t just online. The customer experience covers the entire end-to-end experience and extends beyond the website. Every single touch point is an opportunity for their customers to experience the brand and to build customer loyalty. So I'll be looking beyond the online experience at fulfillment and multichannel strategies.

So if you are at Retail Week 2008 today or tomorrow and want to discuss your companies eCommerce offering then please come along to our stand for a friendly chat.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience then we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Piclens offers Flickr an enhanced image browsing experience

2008-03-11T18:44:00Z

In a previous post I recommended Flickr for organising and sharing collections of Interface Designs, and described how to create such a collection using Snagit with the Flickr extension to capture screen designs and send directly to Flickr. Browsing these large collections in Flickr is not a great experience. With Flickr you either view an image then click 'back' to select the next image or browse images using the photostream. Both ways are clunky and a somewhat frustrating user experience. So here's...(read more)

Four-oh-Four : give it the respect it deserves

2008-03-10T16:56:00Z

The 404 error is the most notorious of all status codes. Four-oh-Four has hit the mainstream, becoming part of our Internet vocabulary and even infiltrating our everyday language. It’s so popular that this status code has abandoned its mates (401, 403...) for international stardom, with galleries, forums and Facebook groups hosting heated debates as to which is the best 404 message. So what is a 404 error? It’s an important question as not everybody knows, something we often take for granted. Despite...(read more)

Become a Blogger

2008-03-07T14:00:00Z

It's fantastic to see such a hive of activity on our company blog as more employees share their thoughts. There's a wealth of information around Conchango so it's good to see people express themselves online and publish their personal thoughts and opinions. I enjoy reading blogs because they feel personal - someone who is passionate about a topic has taken time out to express this.

Everyone has a different writing style. Some people write short references whereas others write in-depth and well-researched posts. I'm a rambler who starts with an idea and then drifts off-piste, hopefully returning 4 or 5 paragraphs later to the original point of my post. Sometimes my ramble is so disjointed that the scribbles are consigned to bloggers graveyard. But that's my way.

This is my writing style and it’s no more right or wrong than anybody else’s style. Our company blog is an open forum to express oneself and to publish content that other people would be interested in. Whether this takes 10 words or 800 words, is serious or amusing - it doesn't matter. There is some hesitation from people to kick-start their blogging career because of misplaced preconceptions that posts must be detailed and well constructed thinking. The only important thing is that they are interesting and relevant.

There is basic blogging etiquette but certainly no strict guidelines. Bloggers should use good grammar, spelling and punctuation. It's important that our posts are relevant and current. There are plenty of sources out there so readers are generally interested in up-to-date news. That's not to say the content needs to be newsworthy - I tend to post about observations from project and everyday experiences. Others bloggers review sites products or technologies, make profound statements, offer tutorials, or make announcements such as the launch of our new Conchango website.

The subject matter in our blog is diverse and represents the broad skills and interests at Conchango and varies from technology to business and creative to recruitment etc

Why do I blog? As a grumpy old man I use the blog as a kind of therapy by getting user experience frustrations off my chest. I liken blogging to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. OK, my posts are incomparable to the ramblings by some of our greatest and most intellectual whackos down at Speakers Corner, but both offer a soapbox for a person to express themselves and both offer the listeners or readers the opportunity to respond.

Other people blog for different reasons, from creating a personal journal to the enjoyment of sharing stuff. Some people blog for marketing or promotional reasons whereas many people do it simply as a hobby (yes, it does get addictive)

Many readers have a short concentration span or are pressed for time so I try to write posts that come in at around the 500 word mark. But I've been equally engaged by less than 100 or greater than 1000 word posts.

What's my point... well, this post is to welcome all new contributors to this blog and to encourage even more to join in. If anyone is hesitant about blogging because they're nervous about what they say or how to say it then think again and get scribbling.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience then we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: La Vie En Rose by Edith Piaf.

Building customer trust should be taken seriously

2008-03-06T22:17:00Z

A web site I once worked on has recently received a trust overhaul and is now lit up like a Christmas tree with all manner of sparkling trust-builders. Whilst the client must be applauded for their endeavour to reassure their customers and engender trust in their online store, simply littering their web site with a generous dollop of trust-builders shows a naivety and misunderstanding of how to build trust for their target audience.

3rd party verification logos, customer service contact details, links to privacy statements, returns policies ... are just a few factors that build trustworthiness. Of course, customers also associate trust with the look and feel of the web site. These and plenty more trust builders now adorn this site and at every step of the shopping experience you can feel these trust-builders breathing down your neck. This clumsy kitchen-sink approach might work for some audiences but the screen clutter creates noise and dilutes the impact of other trust-builders whose purpose at that moment is to allay any concerns and put the customers’ minds at ease.

Create a Trust Strategy Document

As part of the user centric design process I can't understate the value in creating a Trust Strategy Document.

This is more than industry wisdom and includes trust design principles and guidelines written to meet the needs of your target audience. This is more than just identifying what factors build trust and reassurance, but when to provide these reassurances, how to deliver them and where to position them. Building trust is complex and is more than dropping a security seal on every page. Trust cues vary for a brand and target audience, by industry, over time, and during different stages of their online shopping experience.

The art of serving these cues is like that of a great salesman. He says the right things at the right time.

Why?

In the early days some customers were reluctant to shop online because of trust issues around the Internet and online transactions. As the Internet has matured as an online market place the trust issues now faced are around which company to do business with online. It’s important that this is given the attention it deserves and how, when and where we communicate trustworthiness to our audience is carefully crafted.

Why? Well, if you lower a user’s trust in your store then the bottom line is your conversion rate will be hit.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience then we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: Club Ska '67: Whine and Grine by Various Artists

Customers patience is running out with retailers who don't walk the walk

2008-02-25T20:54:00Z

There is debate as to who coined the phrase buzzword bingo but Scott Adams undoubtedly took the game global in 1994 when Dilbert was given a buzzword bingo card on his way to a meeting with his boss. The same year that this cartoon was created, the Internet population opened up beyond researchers and academics as the Internet became available to the public.

1999 – 2000 saw the first generation of online stores as many established retailers took their business online, although it was after the dot com bust of 2001 that retailers started to truly embrace the Internet.

In the last 5 years of mainstream eCommerce our vocabulary has become richer to include terms such as Shopping Cart Abandonment, Purchase Momentum and Conversion Rate (to name but a few). Retailers regularly display eCommerce tourettes, with repeated utterances of these eCommerce catchphrases.

So as with any technological advancements, the eCommerce revolution brought a new set of buzzwords.

Wikipedia defines a buzzword as "typically intended to impress one's audience with the pretense of knowledge." 5 years is not long for a new business channel to emerge and mature but the underlying principles of commerce have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. These may be buzzwords for the digital space but they are not new to retail.

Customers’ expect the online shopping experience to learn from these hundreds of years of retail experience and their patience is running out with those retailers that can't deliver a robust user experience based on these most basic of underlying principles - this pretense of knowledge has no value to the customer, retailers need to follow through with actions.

Take a simple task such as picking up and carrying items in a bricks n’ mortar store. The Piggly-Wiggly supermarket chain introduced the first ever Shopping Trolley back in 1937. The trolley has evolved since the 30’s but the purpose has remained the same – to allow the customer to conveniently transport items with them as they move around the shop.

Yet when stores went online these 70 years of shopping experience were forgotten!

When a customer adds an item to their basket they are taken away from the product page and forced to view the basket. Why shouldn’t the online customer keep the basket with them at all times, like they do offline? Forcing the user to view the Shopping basket every time a user clicks ‘add to basket’ is slowly being consigned to the web 1.0 history books, but why has it taken retailers so long to implement basic principles that are established in the offline world?

Time is running out for those retailers that continue to talk the talk but don't follow through with actions. Don't frustrate your customers by hiding behind these so-called buzzwords and apply your offline retail knowledge online.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience then we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: In Distance by Bitcrush.

Capture those loving ‘ecommerce’ moments

2008-02-20T09:00:00Z

Everyone knows Flickr is a great community platform for sharing digital photos with friends and family. However, Flickr is also a great tool for capturing, organising and sharing Design Patterns or collections of Interface Designs.

Here are a few examples of people doing this...

DragonVista’s collection of 500+ ecommerce home pages

Peter Morville’s (findability.org) Search Patterns

Factoryjoe’s Design Patterns

It's easy to capture screen designs and create your own Flickr collection with Snagit, although there are plenty of other tools which do this including freebies such as TechSmith's Jing. Snagit works for me as it has a ‘scrolling window’ capture profile to capture all the content of a scrolling web page.

You can install accessories to extend Snagit further. There are a number of accessories to take your Snagit screen capture and send directly to a 3rd party service, such as Flickr.

This accessory adds a Flickr button to the Snagit preview window toolbar.

You can configure your Flickr output options to add default tags to the screengrab being sent to Flickr and specify what collection to add it to.

With just two clicks I can capture a screen design and upload it to my Flickr account. Easy.

If you're interested in seeing a comprehensive set of Product Details pages then bookmark Wandy's Collection as I'll be adding to this collection daily.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience the we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: Let the blind lead those who can see but cannot feel by Atlas Sound

Getting to know your audience

2008-02-17T22:48:00Z

Kelly, 28, is a Senior Account Manager for a PR Consultancy based in Central London. She has a two-bedroom apartment in St Johns Wood, moments from Lord's Cricket Ground. She is “too busy enjoying life” to settle down but when it comes to a good time she ....

OK, before the tech chaps get a bit hot under the collar I must point out that Kelly is not a “real” person. Kelly is a fictional portrait of a typical user of web site X, created from a solid understanding of users attitudes, behaviours and motivations. Kelly is an example of a believable 'persona', a powerful tool for creating user-centric designs.

I am often quizzed how I gather the customer insight to produce accurate personas. The answer is “from whatever means I can”. Personas are based on sound user research – talking to actual users might be the most effective method, but there's a host of other research methods which will surface valuable data on user attitudes and behaviours. As I am currently in the middle of gathering user information for a project here are some of the ways I intend to analyse their current and potential users:-

Interview real users, one-to-one or using focus groups. Nothing beats talking to actual users
Interview people within the organisation. This includes both office staff and store staff (online and bricks & mortar store).
Talk to all other stakeholders and gather their opinions
Review all available marketing research data
Talk to friends and family to see if they are current or potential users. Sometimes actual users are closer than you think.
Trends analysis. Use resources such as Forrester to understand specific consumer trends.
Investigate site analytics. Provides data about site visitors and their online behaviour
Analyse search data
Gather data from customer satisfaction survey & site feedback forms
Study external audience reports (if available). For example, Quantcast
Call-centre listening and/ or call transcripts
Emails and letters from customers
Read relevant groups and discussion boards on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace
Directly observe users in the field
Read blogs to see what others are saying about the clients brand

A fellow User Experience Consultant told me a few years back about the time she had to research the target audience for a well-known high street sex shop. Before walking in to the shop to kick off some observational study she sat in a cafe opposite to get her morning caffeine fix. A chance rendezvous with a double espresso was rewarding and gave her an unexpected and valuable insight to the stores customers. Firstly, a large numbers of customers were visiting this cafe after purchasing from the sex shop. By sitting there she was able to observe these customers and listen-in on their conversations. Secondly, she noticed that a large number of potential customers were stalling from entering the sex shop. A pattern emerged and she conducted field interviews with these customers who did not have the courage to enter. These interviews proved very revealing.

The lesson here is use whatever sources you have access to, to get inside the head of the user. Whatever the budget or time constraints there are ways and means to get to know your audience. If you have any suggestions of other ways to gather user data then please share by adding your comments.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience the we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

Where is the goddamned phone number?

2008-02-11T21:00:00Z

I walked in to an electrical store this weekend to purchase a Cambridge Audio Azur Receiver but couldn’t find what I was looking for. There were no sales staff around whatsoever to ask whether they had the item in stock, although a sign read ‘leave us a message and we will try to get back to you within 48 hours’.

Sounds strange!

However this is the scenario still faced by many online shoppers.

Most customers expect an immediate response to product and service queries. Answers may come from the help and product information displayed on your site but when it doesn't answer their query your customer needs to be able to talk to a Customer Services Representative. Customers also require the reassurance that should they need help there is someone to talk to.

By simply positioning your customer services phone number in a prominent location you can significantly increase customer confidence. Some users I’ve done research with refuse to shop at any store without a direct line to the stores customer services. So get your phone numbers up and make them easy to find.

Sounds obvious!

Yet many ecommerce sites still don’t provide a non-premium contact number or make it hard to find. View your web site as a Virtual Customer Service Representative. The web site is there to help your customers find and purchase your products, as well as to give your customers the confidence to do business with you. This Virtual Customer Services Representative should be as helpful as possible but when they cannot answer your customers query then there is no substitute for contact with the real thing. Offer your customers reassurance that if they had a problem there is a real person they can talk to.

When we built a content managed ecommerce site for one client I recommended that they place their Customer Support phone number in a generous font at the top centre of every single page. The eCommerce Director was concerned that this would increase the call volume. I reassured him that there might be an initial 5-8% increase in callthrough rate after their site redesign as customers familiarise themselves with the new site but after that the number of calls would steadily fall below that of the call volume before the site launch. The client listened and the phone number took pride of place in the header (and footer) of every screen.

Post-launch a slightly disgruntled client informed me they had been swamped by calls and the increase was closer to 40%. I had advised the client that the prominent positioning of a contact number is just a small element of a wider strategy to address customers support needs. When I reviewed their site I discovered poor product descriptions and product imagery, confusing information around their delivery proposition, almost non-existent FAQs etc The increase in callthrough was only partly due to the prominent number but more so because they were not addressing their customers’ needs. For example, they had increased their product catalogue ten-fold but not enriched the product data. Most customers tend not to call unless they have a reason - of course there are exceptions and there is no accounting for the actions of some folk who will phone no matter how clear and informative your site is.

You need to give your customers as few reasons as possible to phone. Building the site experience around your customers needs will reduce callthrough and increase conversion rates. When you provide a contact phone number you must have the support strategy, infrastructure and agents in place to handle the calls, otherwise customers will suffer a negative experience of your customer service. One user went as far to say “I would phone the telephone number to speak to someone to get an idea of whether to do business with them or not.”

I recently phoned Empire Direct 2 or 3 times a day for 5 consecutive days with a product query and did not get through one. I finally gave up. If I had a problem with a faulty item I had purchased then I would not be able to resolve it if I couldn’t speak to anyone. So I shopped elsewhere.

And let's not forget the infamous Kiddicare whose disregard for Customer Services is second to none. If you are unfortunate to have to return an item to Kiddicare you are likely to find they don't respond by email and the only channel you can get a response from them on is their premium phone line. You'll soon find any savings are rapidly eroded as you are kept talking on their revenue generating premium line.

Webcredible carried out research last year to identify what builds customer trust in a website when buying online. From nearly 1200 responses 'contact phone number readily available' was the 4th most popular reason. Making the number available was rated more important than providing security assurances.

Customer services is regularly viewed by the business as an overhead but the costs can only be reduced by either investing in a user-centric site design and/ or by regularly updating your website to ensure all support content on your site is still relevant and adding stuff to address latest support enquiries. As customers are very cautious when buying online you must go the extra mile to reassure them and build that level of trust. The worst thing you can do is hold back or hide your contact numbers.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience the we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend

that Warm Fuzzy Feeling

2008-02-04T21:26:00Z

Total Customer Experience covers the entire end-to-end experience and not just user interface design. A retailer who understands that every single touch point is an opportunity to strengthen or weaken their customer relationship advances from a transactional model to an interaction model. A few years back customers were shouting out for improvements to the end-to-end experience but no sooner has the retailer implemented a customer-centric fulfillment strategy, integrated an eService solution or set up regular communication during the order process that the customers' expectations have shifted up a gear.

In a recent interview a customer, Kelly, told me "I expect more than a number of emails telling me the status of my order, good delivery and fancy packaging." Kelly continued "I want more than a personalised experience. I want a humanised experience." She wasn't alone in expressing her need for that human element. This message was delivered loud and clear by a number of the participants in this user research programme.

Is it that technology can alienate some customers, so humanising the user experience enables us to connect more emotionally? Perhaps all the individual interactions through the end-to-end life cycle contribute towards our emotional feeling but these emotions are more likely to connect with a humanised experience.

One participant, Jonah, felt this emotional connection was dependent on "there being evidence of a pulse beating behind the online store."

If your company sells a great product your customer might remember you, but the likelihood is they will remember the product. If you give them a positive emotional feeling then they will remember you.

Another participant, Lucy, referred to these emotional connections as the wonderfully titled "warm fuzzy feelings".

To illustrate this emotive connection here is my personal experience of this so-called warm fuzzy feeling.

I ordered the Black+BlumTime Square, a multifunctional memo board which features a blackboard, clock and magnet board. When I unpacked it from several layers of protective packaging I revealed some chalk scribbles on the blackboard. It read 'hi Rich, enjoy'. The fact that someone had carefully unpacked the memo board, scribbled the personal message in chalk, and then meticulously re-packaged it so it still looked brand new gave me plenty of warmth and fuzz. This was a charming touch that gave me an instant emotional connection with the store. I could provide further examples but it would be good to hear your experiences of what it took to emotionally connect you?

If humanising User Experience becomes a competitive necessity then retailers need to move beyond computer generated personalisation and add that human touch. Experiences no longer would be cold digital experiences but offer a warmer humanized experience where the human elements feel more dominant than the technology.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience the we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: Kosmischer Pitch by Jan Jelinek

Not everyone needs to be an innovator

2008-01-31T07:03:00Z

Am I one of the rare breed of eBay virgins who has resisted the allure of this auction site for over a decade? If so, the clan is one man less as I was deflowered this weekend after years of resistance. I finally succumbed to the charm of eBay as a seller tempted me with a delicious and extremely rare compilation CD (limited to 100 copies) that I had been hunting for a while.

Calling me an eBay virgin is somewhat misleading as I have purchased plenty of items from eBay at a fixed price (using the Buy It Now button). But until now I had not purchased a listing at a bid price and taken part in the auction side of eBay.

This auction took me on the emotional journey that an eBay shopper experiences. I was soon caught up in the ecommerce site that trumps all the other online retailers when it comes to pathological shopping compulsions.

Within 24 hours I had grown from an eBay virgin to serial bidder. Within 24 hours I had won my 3rd auction. And a few days later I joined the army of sellers desperate to make a quick buck by listing some guilty pleasures from my record collection.

As someone who is often regarded as the grumpy old man of site critiques I thought I would be generous and open my 2008 account with a positive review. Some may see it as slightly perverse that I am about to give praise to a company that many regard as having a lackluster attitude to their users experience!

After my graduation from eBay virgin to experienced bidder a co-worker quizzed me as to what I thought of the user experience. He expected me to launch in to a tirade of usability flaws but I had to be honest and respond "I don't know". Perhaps I was overcome by the sudden rush of adrenaline as I joined the bidding war and therefore somewhat blind to the user experience. However, my rule of thumb is that if you can't remember the site experience then either it's not very memorable or it was a fairly good experience. A user remembers experiences that delight or disappoint.

I'll give eBay the benefit of doubt and say it was a fairly OK experience even though this doesn't support the endless threads I read from frustrated eBay users moaning about the experience.

So my praise comes in the humble and faint praise of "I don't know". Maybe I've still got some Christmas spirit left in me after all.

eBay has not been pimped up with web 2.0 controls or communities but not every site needs to match Amazons appetite for innovation. Site improvements are high on eBay's agenda and their conservative design strategy is as valid as Amazon's design strategy. Maybe people should cut eBay some slack.

So I've been happy with my experience and eBay's conservative approach to design improvements. But for those critics who want enhanced feature filtering, are craving for improvements to the search algorithm to address exorbitant shipping costs or feel the site organization is in need of some loving, the good news from eBay is that in 2008 they plan a generous helping of user experience changes.

If you don't think eBay have shown their commitment to users then take a peep at the improvements that evolved http://www.motors.ebay.com/ to http://motors.ebay.com/

And what about http://playground.ebay.com/ .This is a play area where eBay experiments with new features before they are introduced to the site. This shows eBay’s cautious but real intent to improve the user experience.

And don't overlook the latest shop from eBay - eBay express, http://www.express.ebay.co.uk/ which showcases improved ways to search and browse.

I'll leave you to judge eBay but maybe it's not as bad an experience as many think. But for those millions of loyal eBay users who have waited patiently you should be rewarded in 2008.

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience the we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: Distortion by the Magnetic Fields

The reading level of the Conchango blog is Junior High School

2008-01-24T08:04:00Z

It is official - the reading level of the Conchango blog is Junior High School. There may be sniggers from the academics among us but this readability rating should be applauded.

For a fun tool with an important message head over to the Blog Readability Test to find out “what level of education is required to read your blog?”

Readability is defined as ‘reading ease’ - a measure of how easy it is to read and comprehend a passage of text. Readability tests are mathematical formulas, most commonly based on word length, number of syllables in a word, and the number of words in a sentence.

The more readable a blog is, the easier it is for people to comprehend, remember and be engaged.

Readability tests have been around for nearly 90 years. There are dozens of them. The more commonly used ones include Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, FOG, and the wonderfully titled SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook).

Most folk are not aware that Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level are included with Microsoft Word. To enable them in MS Word select Spelling and Grammar, click ‘options’, and select the checkbox ‘show usability statistics’.

The different tests do give varying results and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Levels can give flattering levels by showing a grade 2 to 3 levels below that of other readability formulas. I am not sure what algorithm the Blog Readability Test uses.

These readability formulas act as a predictor of difficulty and supporters of such algorithms say they give a reasonable indication of how readable your post is. These are not precise diagnostic tools and a nonsensical paragraph of gobbledygook could achieve a misleading score. The results from these algorithms make interesting reading but understandably they do have their critics (me included).

“Nearly all of today's blockbuster writers write at the 7th-grade level, including John Grisham, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, and Dan Brown”. Authors of children’s books take readability very seriously and they repeatedly run their scripts through readability programs to check suitability for their audience.

As bloggers we should all be taking readability seriously. In my opinion these readability algorithms should be taken with a pinch of salt as they do not take format, punctuation, spelling or content in to account, but if this tool simply makes us bloggers think about the readability of our posts then this can only be a good thing.

This fun tool serves as a reminder that typical readers might find your writings hard to comprehend. An important rule of thumb is to write your post at a readability level pitched below that of your target audience. This tool is light-hearted and not to be taken too seriously but it does raise some very important considerations about how you write your posts to make them more readable and accessible.

A co-worker recently fired this readability test at our Conchango blog and it returned the grade Genius. After my flurry of recent posts the reading level for the Conchango blog is Junior High School. Should I be concerned? :)

P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience the we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?

Listening to: Untrue by Burial