I just needed cat food.
I needed prescription cat food for an ailing cat, so I could only get it at the vet’s office. And it was Sunday. I knew my vet kept office hours on Sunday, but only for a very short window of time. My mind kept coming up with “two” and “four”, but I wasn’t really sure so I went to look up the clinic’s office hours online.
Now I’d looked them up online before. I’d found a basic web page, limited in function but complete with all the information a customer would likely need: address, phone number, office hours, attending vets’ names, etc. That’s what I expected to find that Sunday morning.
I Googled the clinic chain’s name, located my neighborhood office and clicked. The web page that loaded next was an online storefront eager to satisfy all my flea and heartworm needs. I backed out, checked the Google results, clicked on my clinic location again. Again, storefront. So I clicked around on the new storefront website, looking for some sort of location listing or anything in the way of meaningful information about the clinic right down the road from me.
Nothing.
I gave up in frustration, deciding to rely on my fuzzy memory and just go to the clinic between 2:00 and 4:00.
Saying the magic words “Go for a ride?” got my dog all geared up for the trip. We drove to the clinic. The place was locked up tight. It turns out that their Sunday hours are 10:00-2:00, four hours ending at two. We parked anyway, got out and took a little rest stop on their grassy lawn. The dog was very confused when we didn’t go inside, and I had to persuade her to get back in the car. She didn’t know what to make of that unprecedented effort to pee in a strange yard.
On Monday morning, the cats went hungry.
A website, like an automated phone tree, can be a very useful business communication tool. It can serve your customers’ needs simply and inexpensively if it readily provides answers to their most frequently asked questions. But when such a tool frustrates your customers, you risk losing them and may never even know why.
Do you have a business website? Take a hard look at it from a customer’s—or potential customer’s—perspective. Invite user evaluations from your family and friends. Does it include the basic information needed to contact you or locate your place of business? Does it contain a mailing address, a phone number, a list of business hours? Does your website bring your customers closer to you, or is it an obstacle they must overcome in order to do business with you?
Communication is everything.