CRM - December 2008 - (Page 35)

WEB SITES: BEST AND WORST 6 Asking only for the information necessary to give your visitors the best experience going forward. Greed Asking for too much customer information, even information you may never use. Sloth Not testing to see what works best for your visitors and your site’s conversion rates. vs 7 Diligence vs Liberality SOURCE: INTERWOVEN Testing on a regular basis to ensure that your content is relevant and directs visitors to where you want them— and where they want to go. Make sure your site is helping your visitors complete their tasks. Give Them Something to Talk About Getting folks talking requires more than just creating a venue. Jason Meugniot, chief executive officer of e-commerce site-builder Guidance, says there are four critical characteristics to maintaining any social environment. Camaraderie | Even if all you know about the person giving you tips on how to get the perfect golf swing is his screen name—”MisterParfect56”—you still feel connected to him because of a shared common interest. Consistency | Whether it’s a blog or a product page, people want to know that you’re either posting new content on a regular basis or that you’re not constantly changing things around (which might make it tough for them to find what they’re looking for). Recognition | Taking the time to acknowledge a frequent commenter or reviewer is a very powerful way of creating a brand ambassador. Give them shopping credit, their own biography page, or even an invitation to be a guest blogger. Access | Give them quality content they feel they can’t get anywhere else. But the email newsletter continued to be a concern. “We were achieving just as many opt-out [and] stale addresses as we were signups, keeping the subscribed count relatively flat over two years,” Hodgson recalls. “During the first three months [of the new site format] we inwww.destinationCRM.com creased our subscriber count by 32 percent.” As the number of subscribers went up, neither the clickthrough nor the opt-out rate was affected. In fact, all statistics remained virtually unchanged but the total number of subscribers increased; applying the same conversion rate to that higher total translates into more sales driven by email. Those sales feed back into a morerobust site. Not only does A.C. Moore let its customers talk and share with each other; the company itself is an active participant. “We used it a lot to solicit feedback before we jumped in the water,” Hodgson says. For instance, when customers started complaining about shipping costs, the company started brainstorming some solutions. Staffers thought a flat rate of $4.99 might work, proposed it to the forum, and found it was well-received. (See sidebar, “Give Them Something to Talk About,” left.) Ash also advises companies to talk to their customer service representatives to find out what consumers are complaining about. If it’s about the Web site, complaints provide excellent feedback into what should be fixed. If it’s about issues that hadn’t occurred to you that can be easily resolved on the site, then you’re saving time and effort for your customers—and your contact centers. Contact Assistant Editor Jessica Tsai at jtsai@destinationCRM.com. 35 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | DECEMBER 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - December 2008

CRM - December 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Rave Is Over CRM on Twitter Financial Frenzy Will Customer Experience Survive in a ‘Soft’ Economy? Holiday Humbug Empowered Consumers Are Ready to Flip the Switch Required Reading Transparency Spiff Up Your Site! They Aim to Please Mixing In a Little Sugar Sweetens the Deal A Newsletter Employs New Tactics A Site Stops Feeling Overtaxed Make ’Em Laugh—Personally Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - December 2008

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