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Back in the olden days, in the last century before the late 1990's (smile...), pretty much all discussion and transaction between a buyer and a seller took place in person or over the phone. Now the Internet is here and as good as the internet is, there is one thing missing on 99.9% of all websites that didnt make the transition from voice to Internet.
To illustrate it here's an example:
I spend lots of time in front of my computer screen and after long periods of time it hurts my eyes. I know I should get a computer screen filter and have been looking for them in stores. There is a definite lack of them in store and when you do find them the staff dont even have any basic knowledge about them.
It is important I make the right choice because it will affect my eyes long term. It needs to protect my eyes and make it more comfortable to work but also not affect the screen colours too much because most of my work is related to website design and colour accuracy. Also, of course i want to get it right first time and not have the hassle of changing it later.
Having no success offline i moved online and found the two "big players" in screen filters. Both are global well known names and here's what i found at their websites:
Very difficult to find the UK section on one site. It really is hidden away.
Neither site displayed any prices. How do i know what price to expect?
The link for one of the sites in Google returned a missing page error.
Some website buttons simply didnt work and produced an error.
No information on where I can physically see the products in my city.
No easy facility to find out more information or get advice.
In fact the whole experience of using their websites to look for filters has not been a positive one. Talk about making me jump through hoops to buy from them. The result, a frustrating and fruitless experience I never want to repeat and a negative image of the companies and how they treat their customers.
It could have been so easy. It could have been an easy sale for them and a positive experience for me.
The one thing I wanted was some advice. They could have had a button next to the product to ask for advice by instant messaging, email, phone, etc. They could have had several examples of different scenario's where the filter might have been employed and recommended one for each scenario. There it is right there! The advice i wanted!
Thats all the site needed (apart from fixing the errors) to sell me their product and ring their cash register up one more time with a brand new sale. That simple sale-inducing advice/ recommendation scenario is missing from 99.9% of websites at their cost. It loses sales. Dont let it be missing from yours!
You can benefit from their mistakes. Make it easy for your customers to buy from you. Dont make the same mistakes they did and you'll increase your sales and have happy customers who will be more inclined to recommend you too.
Good luck as always!
Peter Simmons is editor of the DYNAMIQ EZINE. GET MAXIMUM RESULTS FROM YOUR WEBSITE! Increase your traffic, sales, profits, referrals and more... START GETTING RESULTS RIGHT NOW with our FREE WEBSITE EVALUATION at http://www.dynamiq.co.uk/ezine or email me anytime for immediate assistance peter@dynamiq.co.uk
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