Web Design Tips and Tricks

The Technology May Change, But Human Nature Remains The Same

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Let me repeat that..

"The technology may change, but human nature remains the same!"

In this wonderful Internet Age, we are all struggling, and succeeding to different degrees, to keep up with the technology. It's a never-ending battle. Web Technology! When it's good, it's often poorly executed, and when it's bad- it's fatal.

Frankly, much of the time, the technology gets in the way of the sales and communication process. Unfortunately, it seems that many people responsible for website design understand the technology available and what they want, more than they understand their fellow man- their potential customers, and what THEY want.

Whoever...?

Whoever got the idea to ask for your name and email addresses before you can enter a site? Try that outside the front door of the local McDonalds!

Whoever got the idea for fancy Flash presentations that take 3 minutes of your time to show off how good the graphics designer was? Try telling people that they have to watch a video presentation before they can enter Wal Mart!

Why can't more than half of Web shoppers find the product they want on a site? Would that be acceptable at the local sports store, or in a mail-order catalog?

Why do more than half of Web shoppers abandon their purchase after they've selected goods and placed them in their shopping trolley? Wouldn't that send your local supermarket broke?

What About The Customer?

This is truly a fascinating time to be a Marketer, and to watch what is being done in the name of Marketing. Look at any successful business in the 'dirt world', and you'll find that it is being rewarded for responding to the needs of its customers, and making more than enough profit to pay its bills. Then look at what has passed for popular success on the Web, and you find that it has to do with how exciting the concept is, how many eyeballs it attracts, how innovative the 'business model', or how revolutionary the technology used is. Nary a word about about the customer satisfaction or profit that are necessary in the real world.

I note with pleasure that some wiser heads are now writing about the "New New Economy", and noting that it's looking more like the Old Economy all the time! This trend will help give credit to those businesses that have been truly successful on the Web (and there are plenty of them), and set up a realistic expectation for those that come onto the Web in the future.

The Fundamentals Still Apply

Take away the technology, and to succeed in Web Marketing, you still need to deliver the basic requirements of Marketing:

-A good Product
-At the right Price
-At the right Time
-At the right Place

It also helps mightily, if you have a good rapport with your customer.

I was delighted a while back, to be asked to lead a Clickz Forum. It posed the following question...

"Whether, in a high-tech age when dot-coms are rushing to automate as much as customer contact as possible, there's still an important place for 'high touch'-- old-fashioned one-to-one sales."

MY answer, was a qualified 'Yes', and my belief is that 'one-to-one sales' isn't 'old-fashioned' at all! Have a look at all the 'new-fashioned' sites that tried to sell autos. They were dismal failures. People used them for information, then went right on down to their local dealership to haggle and buy from real people. No matter how good a job the programmers did of automating customer contact, the customers didn't feel confident enough to complete the transaction on the website. Some businesses are so "high-touch", that wise marketers would choose to use a website only as an information, branding and lead- generation tool, with real people following up the leads.

Sure, you're right, the auto example is an extreme case. And, no, you can't afford to have a real-live salesperson selling that $9.99 CD online. I understand. Even in the real world, we have vending machines, so we don't need a human holding our hand in every sales transaction. It varies with the nature of the product.

Understand Your Customer's' Needs!

No matter how much money and technology some Web businesses throw at automating customer contact, they're doomed to failure. You can only successfully automate something you UNDERSTAND. Unfortunately, many of our dotcom whizz-kids have never had to make a living from real customers in the real world, so they just don't 'get it'. What online businesses DO need to do, is to understand what the customers' needs are in the sales process, and fulfil them.

What is really needed, is a caring, thoughtful fulfilling of customers' needs and expectations at every step in their experience with a Web business site. The better all the small steps are performed, the less need there will be for real-time human intervention (and the higher will be the conversion rate). This means;

-a professional, friendly tone to the complete website

-information about who you are- the company, the founder, the staff. Let your customer know that there are real people there

-sensible ads that don't mislead and set up unreal expectations

-relevant descriptions from customer searches of Directories and Search Engines

-quick-loading web pages

-easy-to-understand page layout, with clear information

-easy-to-understand navigation

-a Privacy Policy to allay fears on privacy

-a Returns Policy and strong Guarantee to allay fears of making the wrong choice

-a clear description of your products or services, and clear pricing options

-secure credit card and information handling to further allay fears on privacy

-a friendly, easy-to-use shopping cart

-a sincere Thank You, and information about what will happen next

If all of these things are done, there will be little need for one-on-one selling on MOST sites. You will already have done the job. Through understanding your customer and providing excellent service, NOT by spending more on technology!

Of course, offering some 'one-to-one' contact is a real plus for any business, and necessary for those that are more "high-touch". There are now a number of programs, some even free, that allow a customer to contact a live operator at your site. Check out LiveHelper.com and HumanClick.com Making it easy for your customer to contact your business site by phone, fax and email should be fundamental.

I read once that the definition of fanaticism was "Redoubling your efforts when you've forgotten your original aim". Solving a lack of customer rapport by throwing more technology at the problem, comes perilously close to the definition.

Firing a function from your browser

The concept is as simple as firing a function from your browser, and it leans on PHP's call_user_func_array.

I'm going to outline the concept as I have implemented it. This exact implementation may not work in your case, but perhaps you can adapt it to do so.

if(isset($_GET['f']) && function_exists($_GET['f'])) {
$func = $_GET['f']; // Get function name.
unset($_GET['f']); // Drop function from from get.
// Fire and print function, passing 
// remaining GETs as function parameters.	
print_r(call_user_func_array($func, $_GET)); 
exit;
}

In our CMS/Framework, we set up a controller with the code from above to respond at a given URL, for example http://www.example.com/__FOO. By passing a function name as a GET variable, in this case 'f', and the parameters necessary for that function to work as subsequent GET parameters, the result of that function will be printed to the screen.

So, http://www.example.com/__FOO?f=hello_foo&a=world would fire the function hello_foo('world'), perhaps printing Hello World! to the screen.

This allows for a quick and dirty test of a given function, and can be done remotely on a live site, if necessary, without touching any files or whatnot.

We hide this behind an authorization wall and also clean our parameters before they get to this level, so if you try this, keep these points in mind.

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