How Easy Do You Make It To Do Business With Your Company?

(Image Courtesy of Pixabay)

​In today’s digital age, consumers and businesses alike have come to expect instant gratification when it comes to engaging with companies.

As the adage goes, “Time is money”. If your customers can’t get what they need when they engage with your website, your phone system and your sales teams, they will quickly move on to the next supplier they find on Google. 

Is your company easy to do business with?
 
This is a question that every small business leader should be able to answer. The process of getting to the answer will provides executives insights on the challenges their customers face working with the business they may not even be aware of. If business leaders are not asking this question on a regular basis, and challenging their business with it, they may inadvertently build processes, policies and tools that make it difficult to do business with them leading to the loss of customers.
 
Perception vs Reality
 
As I’ve asked this question of many small business owners, I’ve been surprised by how different the answers I get are compared with reality.
 
The typical answers I get are:
      “Our customers love us…”
      “We have a website”,
      “We have an 800-phone number”,
      “We have “N” number of sales people”,
      “It is Real Easy”,
 
Before I ever ask the question, I’ve usually done a bit of research and have a pretty good idea of what the real answer is from a customer’s perspective. What comes next is a quick exercise we use to discover the gaps that often exist between a business’s perception vs the customer’s reality. We will explore each answer in this and future posts to understand how important being easy to work with is and how essential it is for a company’s growth.
 
“We have a website!”
 
To start the discovery process, I like to start looking at a customer’s website. I ask the executives to take out their phones or their laptops and go to the homepage on their website and navigate out to various places to find information about their company: 

• Is the site optimized for mobile devices or just desktops?
• Can they find basic information about their company’s mission? Who is in the management structure along with contact information?
• Can the search for the products and services the company sells?  Are there descriptions of each? Can they find product spec sheets?
• Can a customer get help or ask a question on-line? Are there FAQ’s? 
• Can a customer order on-line, and can they get order status and find supporting documentation?
• How many clicks through the website does it take to find something?

 
The intent of these questions and this quick discovery exercise is to put executives into their customer’s shoes.  According to HubSpot and Chartbeat (a data analytics company), a website has less than 15 seconds to capture the attention of a visitor.[1] If your website visitors have a difficult time engaging, and finding information, you are losing valuable potential customers and negatively impacting your company’s growth potential.
 
Key Point
 
If there is only one thing you take away from this post, it is to remember, a company’s website is its digital store front and you only get one chance to make a first impression. As this is often the first place a customer engages with your business, it must be easy to use. If not, then there is a strong chance you risk losing business every time someone visits your webpage.
 
How easy is it to use your website?
 
Next time we will explore the value of capturing and analyzing the data about visitors to your website and how simple tools and insights can provide avenues for growth and profitability. It is easy to do and can deliver incredible insights that your business can use to drive engagement, customer acquisition and growth.
 
 
 © 2019 - Daniel Kern, Tyler Creek Consulting
All Rights Reserved.


[1] HubSpot article – 55% of Visitors Spend Fewer than 15 Second on You Website. Should You Care? – Ginny Mineo & Tony Haile CEO of Chartbeat, a data analytics company.