I was doing some reading on usability stuff and thought I’d check out our homepage. Pretending that I know nothing about what we do and then reading all the text on the front page, I asked myself: How does a user use us? Is it an online service or is this a marketing site for a manual service that we provide via phone/email whatever? After reading it a couple of times, there is no way of ever knowing. Yes, there is the take a tour, but that’s already one click away from the homepage, and most people don’t scroll or go a level deeper then the homepage unless they already know what they are looking at is of interest to them. One can argue that the front page is a “teaser”, or a hook to gain a persons interest, but looking at the studies done, people don’t browse like that. The hook is not “Could this be of interest to me? I should find out more” but “This is of interest to me. Show me more.”
Tag Archives: business
Customer Service
I suffered some pretty poor service when I returned to JEM Ltd to have the faulty valve fixed. I won’t go into details but here are what I think are ways of offering good customer service:
Apologise
Whether or not a customer’s complaint is valid and even not your fault. Just say sorry and try to understand where the customer is coming from. At rather then just being told “We’re really sorry, we’ll do our best to help.” they tried to wriggle out of having anything to do with the problem. Although a short term win for them, I’ll never be returning and will be making sure I make it known to anyone I can to never go there. Any short term loss involved with rectifying my problem would be repaid through repeat business and word of mouth about the quality of service. Washing your hands of a customer’s problems is not a recipe for success.
Listen
When a customer is angry, don’t point it out, you’ll only make them more angry. Saying things like “Before you get angry” or “If you’ll just calm down” will only infuriate them more. I’m not normally one to get angry and wasn’t at the time, but wow, did this push me over the edge. People get angry when they fell like they aren’t being listened to. Shouting is a way of making yourself heard. So if a customer is shouting at you, double your efforts to listen to them. As corny as it is, God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason.
If I was Microsoft
Microsoft recently started their new ad campaign where seemingly normal people try to buy a new computer. They’re given a budget and if they find one that fills their requirements, they can keep it.
The first advert follows Lauren with a budget of $1000. She wants a laptop that’s fast, has a comfortable keyboard and a 17” screen. On her quest for a laptop she visits the Apple store and comes out saying they are over her budget and that she’s just not cool enough to be a Mac person. She has no trouble finding a suitable laptop in regular electronics store and ends up purchasing a HP Pavilion. The second advert follows Giampaolo with a slightly bigger budget of $1500. He wants a laptop that’s portable, has good battery life and power. Once again there is a poke at Apple. This time they are more about aesthetics rather then power and that he doesn’t want to be paying for a brand. And once again he ends up with a HP Pavilion (Oh, HP, that’ll be the brand you just paid for then).
My problem with the adverts isn’t the poke at Apple, but rather they are promoting a non-message. If I’m going out to buy a new computer and I don’t want a Mac or want a Mac but don’t want to save for it, I have no choice but to buy a PC. I can’t see them swaying the people who have made the choice to switch and have the money ready to buy a Mac. So who are these adverts aimed at? There’s no competition in the sub $1500-$2000 range, so is it even worth doing at all. Honda make ads to stand out amongst Toyota, Ford etc. They don’t make adverts in the hope that they’ll stop people that are thinking of splashing out on an expensive sports car, and sway them to settle for a Civic instead. This and the previous ”I’m a PC” series of adverts just end up legitimising Apple’s presence. Apple is a tiny dog biting at the heels of a giant, yet Microsoft feel like they need to gear their entire consumer TV advertising campaign to take them on. The campaign may well be just insurance for Microsoft. How many heads would roll if they decided to ignore Apple completely, or not even bother advertising to consumers, and then their market share tanked. Perhaps it’s better to appear to do something, then to not do anything at all. On the other hand though, could all that money be better spent doing something else.
All of which leads me onto what I would do if I was Microsoft. Simply, I would advertise Windows 7 and IE8. I’d give people hope once again in Microsoft products (Hopefully the products would match the hype). But I’d ram it down people’s throats day and night. “Forget what you thought about Vista, Windows 7 is coming”. “Experience the web like you’ve never done before. IE8 has arrived”. That sort of stuff.
Perhaps that’s what I find so alluring about the “Apple way”. When you see them in use, you feel like you’re being taken to a time and place beyond the normal preconceptions of how technology works. Microsoft used to have that. Microsoft used to ask “Where do you want to go today?”, with the promise of taking you there, no matter how far fetched your dreams were. Now they just state “Your potential. Our passion.”, which leaves you with the sinking feeling that really over the years a massive void has grown between us and them.
What we all need is understanding
There’s always that storyline in films and TV shows. Parents despair as they become more and more distant from their angst ridden teenage son/daughter who complains of just being mis-understood. There all the signs of neglect on the parents side, not spending time with them or not showing enough love. Then there’s normally some sort of horrible event that brings them all together again to be one big happy family and they all live happily ever after. Think John McClane in Die Hard and his daughter Lucy, or Sean Archer in Face/Off and his daughter Jamie. The parents and the teenager are living separate lives and there’s a clash when they come together because neither understands where the other is coming from.
As a developer this problems often occurs when working with people not from a technology background. Warren Buffett’s famous advice is to “Invest in what you understand.” and while many managers take the time to understand their market, they don’t take the time to understand the technology/processes of their business. It’s no surprise to me that the only company that I’ve worked for that’s actually achieved a measure of success is run by people who not only have a very clear understanding of their market, but who also have a very clear understanding of the technology they provide. What of the others that are no longer around? It’s no surprise I spent a lot of time at those places trying to explain how things worked and why things couldn’t be done. And while some businesses are about pushing the boundaries and innovating, to do so requires a knowledge of the limitations of what currently exists.
As a developer I have been as guilty of this sin as everyone else. It’s very easy to take no interest in the customer and to care only about the technology. Perhaps to a degree this is an even worse situation to be in over having management that don’t understand technology, as when this happens, solutions that are unusable by anyone are usually delivered. I know for a fact I have delivered plenty of products without ever asking myself who the product is actually aimed at, all the while being completely feature focused. When I think back to those products, it’s a wonder they survived any sort of usage at all. Now, rather then only caring if something can be done or not, I try and ask myself who will be trying to achieve a task and what is the best way for them to go about doing so. As with anything, there is a balance that needs to be found.
Managers, understand the technology. Developers, understand the market.