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March 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Interested in Feedback? Keep Your Surveys Short.

As a member of a number of associations and networking groups, I receive a lot of surveys. It always amazes me how long and cumbersome most of these surveys are. Inevitably they will be multi-page monsters that require me to type things in and fill in blanks. 99% of the time these surveys end up falling prey to my delete key. Do the senders of these surveys really expect to get a reasonable response when the surveys are this long and complicated?

In order to maximize your response rate, use the following guidelines:

  1. Keep your surveys short. 5-7 questions should be the maximum.
  2. Make all questions one-click multiple choice. Do not ask your readers to fill in blanks or type in text unless it’s an optional final question for other comments.
  3. Keep your surveys to one page.

Additionally, it’s a good idea to tell your readers that your survey will take 2 minutes or less to complete. This sets expectations and reduces the anxiety caused by all the other awful surveys they received. If I can see the entire survey on one page, then I know exactly what to expect, which lowers my anxiety level. If every question is on it’s own page, then I get more and more anxious as I continue because I keep thinking “when will this end?”

If you really want a useful response from your recipients, keep your surveys short and to the point. This will result in data you can actually use.

Filed Under: Design, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: ,
January 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Reduce Anxiety to Increase Sales

I came across a great article recently titled Reducing Customer Anxiety About Products on Product Pages that described how to increase conversions on your e-commerce site. Though this article focused on reducing anxiety with e-commerce sites, it was a great piece of advice for many different types of web sites.

Successful businesses need to have a professional, attractive, and functional web site. This is fairly accepted by most people. However, how much time do we spend on crafting that site so that our potential customers feel safe and comfortable when interacting with our businesses and organizations on the web? I often see sites that spend lots of time on Flash or beautiful imagery but have very little content to tell a story or teach me how their products will benefit me. Non-profits and associations are also guilty of this – if I join an association, what can I expect as a member? What are the guidelines? What’s the benefit for me?

Here are some ways to reduce visitor anxiety when he/she is exploring your web site:

Create a Thorough FAQ. The FAQ seems to be a lost art and many sites either don’t have one or post a useless one that doesn’t really answer anything. A good FAQ should get inside the head of your constituents and address the common concerns that most people have about your product, service, or organization. This helps reduce anxiety and increases the level of familiarity that sites visitors have with your organization.

Utilize Case Studies. Case studies are a powerful tool that can dramatically increase the level of trust you have with your audience. Tell stories about how you solved a problem or eased the pain for your customers and how they benefited from working with you. Stories about other customers are much more effective than self-promotion.

Explain How You Are Different. Your competitors are all saying the same thing. They are probably using vague marketing messages centered about “customer service” or “quality”. Be different: tell your customer how you provide customer service. Explain why your quality is superior. Then, go a step further and explain how it will benefit your customer. These are the things your customers are asking as they explore your web site.

Your customers and constituents need to feel safe before they work with you. Don’t keep your stories in a black box. Ease their fears and anxiety by anticipating and addressing these concerns up front. People want to work with companies and organizations that are transparent and honest, not mysterious unknowns. Reduce anxiety and increase your sales.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , ,
October 20, 2008 By 1 Comment

50 Web Usability Tips that Help You Attract and Retain Web Visitors

Thanks to Douglas Karr, I discovered a very useful list of usability rules that make good sense to review every now and then:

50 Web Usability Tips that Help You Attract and Retain Web Visitors.

A nice reminder that little details matter.

Filed Under: Design, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , ,
October 16, 2008 By Leave a Comment

The difference between common knowledge and universal knowledge – 37signals

I came across this blog post from 37signals today:

The difference between common knowledge and universal knowledge – 37signals.

I enjoyed this because it’s something we constantly struggle with at SpinWeb. The struggle is “how do we make this easy for our clients” while still following common usability rules. As tech-oriented people, we (i.e. the team at SpinWeb and similar teams at similar agencies) often do forget that the average person has no idea what Twitter is and has never used Facebook. We take many things for granted and so we sometimes forget that others don’t live in our world.

It’s a fine balance point between providing extreme education and support, and at the same time asking our clients to take a leap of faith and supplement their existing knowledge with some new skills that we are happy to teach. The best relationships are a result of both parties making an effort to learn and grow.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: ,
August 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Writing Content for the Web

Web content is different than content in a magazine or in other media. So much of the time I see web sites that are filled with pages and pages of dry, long-winded, boring content that is doing nothing to help connect with the site visitor. There are plenty of web sites that contain beautiful imagery and great design work but then fail to complete the package with good content. Here are some guidelines for writing good web site content.

Less is more. People reading a magazine have time to read articles and stories. They are sitting down with a paper publication and are expecting to invest 15 minutes into a reading session. On the web, attention spans are measured in seconds. For this reason, web content must get to the point very quickly and directly. When someone is visiting a web site, it’s usually because that person is looking for a solution, getting a question answered, buying a product, or trying to achieve some other specific goal. This means that most people will have very little patience with web pages that ramble and take more than a few seconds to digest.

Use bullet points. Since web content needs to be action-oriented and get straight to the point, bullets points often help your readers scan and digest text very quickly.

Break paragraphs with a double line break and no indentation. In a book or paper publication, indented paragraphs are the norm. In web pages (and in emails, as well), paragraphs should not be indented and should be separated by a double line break. This improves readability.

Use polished grammar. While this seems obvious, I continue to see web sites riddled with grammar mistakes, typos, and broken sentences. Content on the web should be written with the same care that would go into a magazine article or a book. Polished, professionally-written web site content will dramatically boost the credibility of your organization.

Keep it constituent-focused. A constituent is a customer, a donor, a member, or some other type person with an interest in your organization. That person is taking the time to read the content on your web site. The content on your web site should connect with that person and show him or her the value gained from your solution, product, service, or mission. Some amount of self-promotion is acceptable but should not become the focus of your message. Instead, keep the majority of your content focused on the benefits to your constituents. Another great direction for your web site content is to tell stories about how your organization helped other customers solve a problem. Case studies like this take the focus off of self-promotion and place it onto your constituents. This gives your content higher perceived value, which builds trust.

Content is often the most neglected piece of a web site. Be sure to present a complete package to your site visitors with effective professional content. Crafting your message carefully can dramatically improve trust with your constituents which leads to greater success for your organization.

Filed Under: Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: ,
July 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Are Your Web Site Error Messages Turning Away Your Customers?

I was registering online for an event this week using a credit card and experienced a usability hiccup on the organization’s web site that I found noteworthy. As I was completing the final steps of the registration online, I clicked submit and instead of being greeted by a confirmation screen, I received an intimidating red error message that said “Your credit card has been declined.” Ouch! No one likes to hear that. However, I knew the card was fine so I tried to think of other reasons for the error. Then I realized that the billing address I had entered was not the one that was associated with the card. I edited my registration and lo and behold, the registration was completed successfully.

While I was able to figure out what the problem was, others might not be so fortunate. How many other customers decided to give up after the first “Declined” message and abandon the registration process? This anecdote illustrates the importance of descriptive error messages. In this particular case, a better error message might be something like:

“There was a problem with your credit card. It was declined by the processor which could be due to a number of things. Some possible causes include insufficient funds, or perhaps the billing address you entered is not the address associated with this credit card. You may want to double-check the billing address you entered. If you continue to have trouble, please call us at 800.555.1212.”

This error message is much more useful that the first one because it gives the customer some useful troubleshooting information as well as a phone number to call as a last resort for further help. It also does not accuse the customer of having a bad credit card, but rather presents some possible scenarios and does not make assumptions, thus keeping the transaction neutral. The scenario above is one example, but user-friendly error messages are important any time your site asks for user data. This same principal can be applied to social networking sites, online forums, or even simple contact forms.

Is your web site inadvertently turning away good customers by displaying cold, unfriendly error messages? Take a look and see if some improvements can be made. A few small changes can turn lost sales into loyal customers.

Filed Under: Design, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: ,
July 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Effective Use of Voicemail

Effective Use of Voicemail

I recently read an article on TechCrunch titled “Think Before You Voicemail” which basically contributed to the recent bandwagon chatter of “voicemail is dead!” and so forth. Though I agree that there are sometimes better ways to communicate certain types of information, I disagree that voicemail is ineffective, dead technology. Rather, I feel that many people simply don’t use voicemail effectively. Here are some tips for getting greater benefit from voicemail.

As the sender:

Speak clearly and leave your callback number (with area code) at the beginning and end of the voicemail. This may seem obvious, but so many times I get voicemails from people who speak almost inaudibly, rush through the phone number, and only leave it once in the middle of the message so I have to replay it over and over. Usability applies not only to web sites and software, but to other kinds of information input, as well. The easier your message is to deal with, the more likely it is that the recipient will act on it.

Make your message compelling. If you are leaving a voice mail for a potential client and you leave a message that says you are just “following up” and would like a call back, what reason does the recipient possibly have to call you back? Instead, try leaving a message for your prospective client explaining that you discovered a way to save him $500 a year by using your solution and you would like to run the details by him. Perhaps you saw an article in a recent publication about his company and you have some questions about it. Perhaps you would like to invite him to be a guest on your next podcast episode. Make it interesting. Voicemails that are just “following up” will get deleted.

Give the recipient options and be specific and actionable. Some people don’t like to return calls but they will email. If you feel that an email could work as a response, leave your email address in the voicemail and encourage the recipient to use it. If you want a call back, leave some good times to reach you. If you don’t need a call back but you would like a specific outcome, say that in the voicemail. The voicemails I hate the most are the ones that simply say “call me back.” That tells me absolutely nothing about the call and gives me no way to decide how to process it. Be clear and specific and make it easy for the recipient to digest, process, and act on your message.

As the recipient:

Batch process your voicemails. Don’t try to haphazardly write notes from your voicemails every time you get one. Wait until you have the tools or materials necessary to capture the information from the voicemails into your personal productivity system. If you have 5 voicemails to deal with, give yourself 15 minutes after lunch to listen to them all at once and decide what the next actions are. Return any calls or perform any actions that will take 2 minutes or less, place the rest on your todo list, and delete the voicemails. Basically, follow Inbox Zero but apply it to voicemail.

Move beyond phone tag. If you get one of those voicemails that says “call me back” and then you get the caller’s voicemail when you call back, leave a message requesting specific information. When this happens to me, I leave a message such as “Hi, Bob… it’s Michael Reynolds at SpinWeb returning your call. My number is 866.SPINWEB. I received your message but there was no information in it about your call. If you get my voicemail when you call back, please leave a detailed message that specifically outlines what I can do to help you. You can reach me at 866.SPINWEB, or by email at michael@spinweb.net. Thanks!” This helps move the conversation forward and keeps both parties from wasting time.

Clean out your voicemails after processing them. This also may seem obvious but I’ve met so many people who have hundreds of voicemails in their inboxes that they never delete and then they end up losing track of which onces they’ve responded to. Get voicemails out of your inbox and into your personal productivity system – then delete them. If nothing else, this keep your voicemail box from getting full. Imagine how embarrassing it would be for a client to call you and be unable to leave a message because your voicemail was full. How unprofessional!

By being mindful, careful, and systematic about how we use voicemail, we can increase the usability and effectiveness of our messages, turning it into a powerful tool for sales, networking, and productivity.

Filed Under: Productivity, Technology Tagged With: ,
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