The checkout process is always the prime suspect in the case of the retailer vs. high abandonment rates.  

A high abandonment rate is an unecessary evil.  For many etailers the percentage of people that add an item to their basket but drop out before completing the purchase sits somewhere between 50 and 70 percent. In simple terms over half the people who show an intent to buy don't submit their order.  wow - it's easy to understand why the checkout gets so much bad press if it's responsible for so many potential customers saying adieu.

Personally I find 50-70 percent high and expect to see this below 50 percent so many retailers have some way to go before they can sit easy when recounting their abandonment rate.

An analytics package will track where in the checkout process customers are dropping out.  The analytics show where potential buyers exit but they can't tell you why with absolute confidence.  And this point is key.   A guilty verdict must be beyond a reasonable doubt. It is this doubt which should encourage us to explore other lines of investigation.

One of the top reasons for abandonment is high delivery costs.  Customers abandon when total purchase cost is more than they had expected. Often the reason is far less obvious.  Customers may exit when their goodwill is exhausted. Customers will persevere but everyone has a limit.  For some customers this limit is reached far quicker than others.  Many potential buyers walk wounded as they battle on, with their goodwill slowly being drained. In many cases the checkout process lands the fatal blow but to truly address customer abandonment you need to identify and eliminate the early blows.

So before you go and string up the architect of your checkout process you need to take a holistic view of your online proposition.  The checkout process is present at the scene of the crime - yes - but is it the main perpretator? Maybe not...

Retailers that can hold their head high and be proud of their abandonment rate continuously improve their websites.  These impressive abandonment rates don't come overnight by making piecemeal enhancements to the checkout process but by having a commitment to their customers experience that is reflected in their online purchase and product proposition. 

Designing an effective checkout process begins outside of the checkout process. Consider for example that many consumers have privacy, safety and security fears. They are concerned about giving personal information.  Look at how you can build customer confidence and trust before the consumer reaches the checkout process.

A few weeks back I was asked to review the checkout process for a retailer. Their checkout process has a good workflow and is fast and simple to complete.  So why the high abandonment rate?

In Pt II of this post I'll look at the top reasons for abandonment and which factors contribute towards this retailers disappointing abandonment rate.

 

Listening to: Volume One by She & Him

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

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?

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 so many users being in the dark about 404’s many sites persist in displaying messages such as  "this is a 404 error message" to their users. 

This status code is a server response when a document or file is requested and can't be found on the web server. Yup, it's a techie term.  Yet we're happy to throw this jargon at unsuspecting users who have got lost through no fault of their own.  Motley Fool explain it in their 404 message: “That's 404: File not found for the technically inclined. For the not so technically inclined that means the link you clicked, or the URL you typed in to your browser, didn't work for some reason."

For some web sites the 404 error message can be the most visited page on your site! For most sites the 404 message will be the response to around 0.1-0.5% of server requests. Yet as Tayler points out in her post "my very first 404 page goes live!" this page often gets overlooked and users who get lost in a web site are left to find their own way out.  The way I view it is that when a user receives a 404 error they have one foot out of the door. The purpose of the 404 message screen is to bring the user back in to your web site before they walk away.  The important thing to remember is that a user arrived at your 404 page because they were looking for something. You need to help them find it

The default error message for most web servers when they get a request for a URL that they don't have is the "404 Not Found" error message.  Fortunately the 404 message can be customised. The design of your 404 message can be crafted to meet the needs of your brand and target audience but there are some basic principles that must be followed. 

Pages go missing for many reasons. The page may have been moved elsewhere, some external site has given an incorrect link, the page no longer exists, or the user makes a typing error. So be realistic, it's going to happen.  The failure to address to 404 error screen is usually down to stubbornness to acknowledge that your site will have errors.  No matter how rigorous you are there will always be errors.

So face the fact, your site will have errors and employ these basic principles when customising your 404 error:-

Do no redirect
Many sites still redirect to the home page. This will disorientate the user. The user deserves an explanation for why they have not reached their intended destination.

Use clear jargon-free language that non-technical folk will understand
Something the user looked for can't be found.  Tell them that.   Your user doesn't care that it's a 404 so why call it that.  Many savvy web users or 'geekier' types know what a 404 is, but equally many existing and new users don't.  I have carried out repeated user testing on 404 screens and the message is loud and clear - talk to users in clear English and reserve “404” for technical discussions only.

Don't blame the user
For example, "oops, you've messed up″ may seem fun and cheeky, but a lost user can rapidly become a disgruntled user so put your hands in the air, take the blame and help them on their way. For example “It’s not you. It’s me.”  Do not make the user feel that they have done something wrong!

Be informative and give an explanation for why they have received the 404 error message
Inform the user what has happened.  For example, the standard message "the page you requested not been found", or the quirkier "this page has gone missing" or "oops, we're sorry the page you requested can't be found”.

Offer a site map so users are able to easily continue their exploration
Provide either a site map or at the minimum links to your web sites most popular pages or sections.  Place obstacles in the way of the user finding what they are after and they are likely to go elsewhere. For example, see Conchango  or Samsung's 404 Error.

Provide a search engine 
For large sites it is recommended to offer search functionality. Remember the user was looking for something when they reached this page so for the same reason as providing a site map, help them find it. For example, Twitter.

Provide Contact details
If all else fails give your users a phone number or email address to get in touch.

Retain the overall look and feel of the site
The 404 experience is part of the users overall site experience. 

What if the 404 error message was the first page a user ever saw of your website?  For some it will be.  Give this message the attention it deserves and treat this page like any other page during a site design. 

It's good to see 404's start getting the respect they deserve.  They are often neglected or an afterthought in a site design.  When a user clicks a button or link they have expectations of the destination screen, so when an error occurs they receive an unexpected page. To avoid disorientating the user this page must be well designed.  As well as following the basic principles above it's important to make sure it's on brand.  I wouldn't expect humour on a Crown Prosecution Service 404 message, but would expect something playful from the likes of Flickr and Twitter.

There are plenty of sites and articles which discuss the heroes and villains of error messages so I won't attempt to reproduce them but point you at 404 Research Lab and Smashing Magazine’s 404 Error Pages: Reloaded.

I’m building a comprehensive set of 404 error’s  - worth bookmarking if 404’s excite you as I’ll be adding to this collection daily. Unfortunately the Flickr screengrab doesn’t do justice to Bluedaniel’s 404 error.  It may not follow my recommendations above but it can't be ignored for its creative and engaging take on the 404 message.

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: Bloody Mother F****ng A**hole EP by Martha Wainwright

 

 

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

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

 

 

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