| Client contact and customer touch-points should | | | | telephone number in a prominent place on their |
| be key pillars of how you run your business and a | | | | site; including "we are an online business", "we |
| key benchmark for this is how accessible you are | | | | don't have employees to man the phones at all |
| for your clients to contact and how easy you are | | | | times" or we "want to cut costs on call centres |
| to do business with. | | | | to maintain competitiveness". However, whatever |
| Even though a considerable amount of your | | | | one of these reasons is post rationalised, I can |
| business may be through your website, you still | | | | assure you that none take into account the |
| need to provide your potential customers and | | | | desires and wishes of customers who may well |
| clients with the choice of how they wish to | | | | be voting with their fingers and tapping into |
| contact you. How often have you visited a | | | | Google a competitors URL. |
| website and found all the main communication | | | | Making your organisation "easy to do business |
| routes; telephone, fax, postal and email address | | | | with" is vitally important especially if you are in a |
| tucked away and almost impossible to find? | | | | highly competitive online marketplace. Attention |
| Customers love being provided with easy to find | | | | spans are short when surfing the web and you |
| and multiple levels of access and I am always | | | | may well be losing customers without even |
| personally incredulous when I'm looking for | | | | knowing it. |
| information or reassurance prior to placing an | | | | I often use offline analogies to illustrate a point |
| order that I can't find obvious contact points on a | | | | about something online because it is a useful way |
| web site. | | | | to check your actions online against what you |
| Sometimes there are just too many barriers to | | | | would do offline. So consider for a moment that |
| contact that I just give up and move on to | | | | you run a shop on the High Street but you have |
| another web site offering the same product or | | | | a permanently locked front door. In place of the |
| service. The web is information rich and browsing | | | | entrance is a cat flap located on the back door |
| attention spans short, so suppliers advertising on | | | | which your customers access by having to climb |
| the web who don't make it easy for customers | | | | over a fence to get to. |
| to access their organisation are at a distinct | | | | Consider this for one moment and relate this to a |
| disadvantage. I appreciate that one of the | | | | recent web site that you have visited. Compound |
| reasons to avoid telephone contact in particular is | | | | this further, by considering how you would feel if |
| to drive down operating costs, but if this is to the | | | | before the shop let you in to browse that they |
| detriment of good customer service and the | | | | asked you to complete and submit a form and |
| product or service is not unique, the organisation | | | | then, and only then, would the shop decide at |
| runs the risk of the web browsing customer | | | | some point whether or not that they would let |
| moving onto another site that is more accessible | | | | you in to browse or purchase. I personally think |
| and user friendly. | | | | life is way too short. |
| I still personally believe in the old adage that the | | | | A very hypothetical scenario, but also one which |
| customer is king and if that philosophy is | | | | may well be worth some further reflection. I |
| imbedded into your mission DNA then loyal | | | | would strongly recommend that all organisations |
| customers are cultivated. | | | | take an outsiders view as to how easy it is to do |
| There may be mitigating circumstances as to | | | | business with them. A reality check in the hard |
| why an organisation would not want their | | | | cold light of day pays long-term dividends. |
