 Introduction
If you give your customers quality, value, and service, they will bring you
return business and drive more customers to your web site. Studies have shown
that creating a good customer experience is the key factor in the success of many
high profile web sites. This article will help you understand how to create a
customer oriented web site.
Understand Your Customer's Needs
The key to creating a customer oriented web site is understanding the needs
of your customers. Remember: if people find value in your web site and you show
that you understand and care about them you will go a long way toward creating
a good long lasting relationship between you and your customers.
Case Study: Fictitious Stored Called Acme Tile
Acme Tile: The Wrong Way:
A local tile company, lets call it Acme Tile, wants to promote their services
on the Internet. They decide to put a simple web site on the web that gives their
name, address, phone, hours of service. They get a free "hit counter"
that tells them how many people have visited their web site. After a few months
they notice only 5 or 10 people have visited their web site and they have not
notice any difference in their business. Acme comes to the conclusion that the
Internet is a waste of time.
Acme Tile: The Customer Oriented Way
Acme decides not to give up on the net. They purchase some books on Internet business
(see our recommended reading
list). They read articles such as this e-commerce planning guide or our web
site design tutorial.
Acme creates a survey form for their in-store customers. They offer a free gift
for filling out the form. The form focuses on the reasons the customers buy from
Acme Tile and what they value about Acme Tile's services. In addition, the survey
announces that Acme is launching a web site in order to better serve their customers.
They ask customers what information would be of interest to them on the web.
It turns out that many of their customers are do-it-yourselfers. They appreciate
Acme Tile's personalized service. Other customers note that they buy from Acme
because they carry high quality Italian Tile in addition to discount tile.
Armed with this information, Acme Tile creates a web site that will serve the
needs of its customers. Here is a brief summary of Acme's web site:
- Home Page Introducing Acme as a Tile Company Serving both the Do-It-Yourselfer
and the Discriminating Purchaser. The home page also contains a small section
updated monthly that promotes up coming in-store events and promotions .
- A step by step tile installation tutorial, complete with illustrations.
- An on-line material estimator: enter the dimensions of all the rooms you want
to tile, and the tile estimator will tell you how much tile, grout, mastic, and
other materials you will need. It will also estimate how long it will take based
on your skill level.
- A complete catalog of all of the tile Acme offers with a description, price,
and some interesting information about the tile.
- A section describing the differences between types of tile and marble emphasizing
how Acme offers some of the higher quality tiles complete with photos of marble
quarries and tile factories in Italy.
- A customer feedback survey so that Acme can continuously refine their web
site.
In addition, Acme launches a promotional campaign in order to promote their web
site. In their weekly newspaper ad, they announce their new exiting web site for
the do-it-yourselfer. They pass out flyers in the local area, and send out press
releases to the Internet section of the local paper.
Case Study: Amazon.com
Amazon.com is one of the most recognized names
of the Internet. Their web site is an example of everything we have been talking
about. It is attractive, engaging, personal and easy to use. Amazon's web site
is clean and easy to navigate. Amazon's strength does not lie in price alone (they
are not the cheapest bookstore on the Internet). They provide plenty of compelling,
context sensitive interactive content. You can look at a book, read professional
reviews, look at reviews of what other customers think, write your own review.
In addition, they suggest other books of interest based on several factors.
For new customers, they walk you through the purchase process. For repeat customers,
they have "one-click-shopping" that allows you to purchase books using
your address and credit card stored in their database.
On-line security is guaranteed and their privacy policy is clearly spelled out.
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