Thinking about website construction from the angle of market--communicating with customers

Written in front: one of my predecessors told me that technology is never the most important, a designer who does not understand the market will always be a manual worker.

In any case, art or technology for art or technology in this era is doomed to a wall, I think.

Thinking about the---details of website construction from the angle of market

A survey published in May 2002 by a British research institute showed that many large companies in the UK have spent millions of pounds on the construction and maintenance of corporate websites, but there are few really useful sites, and the money spent is almost wasted. In fact, this situation in China is also very common, it is no exaggeration to say that more than 95% of the corporate web site usually does not play a large role. So we can often see some
For the Enterprise website "diagnose" the article lists the enterprise "the crime", for instance the website design is simple, the long-term has not updated, the website lacks the effective promotion and so on, the actual situation is not limited to these superficial problems obviously.

If in-depth analysis, it is easy to find that many sites in some seemingly obscure small problems often exposed their unprofessional shortcomings, these problems may not look serious, or even insignificant, but practical experience shows that the overall function of the site is almost the case, The details are often a key factor in determining whether a Web site is really effective.

Little things, big problems.

A small mistake on the website may cause serious economic losses, even cause unnecessary legal disputes, do not think it is sensational, this kind of thing has appeared in some well-known enterprises. According to reports, in December 2001, before Christmas, Dell Computer company on its own website, the price of the product was mistakenly posted, A normal price of 229 U.S. dollars of speakers were labeled 24.95 U.S. dollars, and changed the information on the website for nearly one weeks, due to a large number of orders, order number once exceeded the number of inventory and forced to cancel some of the orders. Dell has had to ship some of its customers at the wrong price, and the cancelled order has received a 10% discount on the software and peripherals available for purchase.

If, say, like Dell, because of the site on the error of text entry caused serious consequences is only accidental phenomenon, so many "daily trivial" in fact, seriously affect the ultimate effect of the site. This "trivial" a lot, we may wish to look at in many enterprises are essential information-"contact method" in the misunderstanding.

£ (1) "Contact Way" should not be staged Kongchengji

The commonly used contact methods include address, telephone, email, etc., you may ask, such a simple question, published on the website not on the line? Yes, it is so simple, but there are many enterprises think simple, but did not give enough attention, resulting in a lot of problems. We can often see the "Contact Us" menu on some sites, click to find a form such as "mailto:webmaster@****.com" email link, want to find the company address and service phone? No, probably want the user to send an email to inquire? If this happens in a personal
The homepage is not surprising, but as a formal enterprise, how will users associate it? Does the enterprise have no formal office space or telephone because it has been terminated for a fee? Or is it simply an illegal website, so it's not daring to publish your address or phone? It is such a simple question, how can we let the user generate trust? Even if you do not think so much, practical experience shows that the letter sent to webmaster is often not timely response, many companies do not even reply to the user's e-mail, it can be imagined that the company's Web site just published such a contact can have much meaning.

(2) Online form is defective

We have further analysis of this, we can find that some of the corporate web site despite the publication of a variety of contact methods, but there are still many problems, in order to contact online, according to the author for many years for a large number of corporate web site analysis and observation, There are usually two main manifestations: one is to publish the contact email of the enterprise on the Web page, the user sends the question to the enterprise related person by e-mail, the other is to use the browser interface to let the user fill in the formatted online form. In addition, there are some non-mainstream forms of online contact, such as forums, guest books, real-time information, etc., we do not do detailed analysis. From the functional point of view, online forms and e-mail These two commonly used online contact methods can achieve the purpose of user communication, but in terms of effect there is a big difference.

Online form is the user to fill out their own contact information and problems through the browser interface, and then submit online to the site, by the appropriate management staff, and because the form can be set in advance a number of formatted content, such as contact name, unit, address, problem category, etc. Information submitted via online forms is easier to categorize than regular e-mail, and is therefore popular with some websites. Although on the surface, the role of online forms and email is not much different from the same, can achieve the purpose of transmitting information, but if mishandled, online forms may have a large potential problem.

First of all, because online forms limit the user's personalized requirements, some information may not be normal expression, and secondly, when the form submitted successfully, users do not know where the information is submitted, how long it will be able to get a reply, and they can not keep a copy of the message, not easy to query later. Therefore, sometimes the use of online forms to contact the way will create mistrust. In addition, the customer filled in the contact email address also has the possibility of error, so will not be able to reply to users by email questions, and even cause users dissatisfaction.

So, is not that online form is not suitable for online contact use it? Of course not, the key is whether to really stand in the user's perspective to consider. In fact, as long as some details are considered more thoughtful, the situation will be very different, for example, in the Contact Information Form page at the same time give other contacts, such as e-mail address, telephone number, and give a service commitment, how long after the submission of the user to reply to the question, It is also necessary to remind users to keep copies of their own in other ways on the issue of consultation. If you add these details to deal with, I believe that users will feel that they are highly valued, can greatly increase the trust of the enterprise, there will be more information willing and business exchanges, and therefore also to a certain extent to enhance customer relations.

If the user uses the email way to contact the enterprise, the reply process of the enterprise responsible person may be slightly troublesome, because the question is not sorted beforehand, the content of the individuality is more, sometimes it is not even easy to judge the person that should be transferred to that part to handle, but to the user will have a certain degree of security, Because he "knows" his e-mail sent to who, can also be sent by the e-mail backup to check their contact records, so by email contact is widely used. But even if an enterprise publishes an e-mail address on its website, in depth, there are many problems, there are some enterprises to use the form of free mailbox, and some sites for the pursuit of visual beauty, the contact information in the form of pictures to express, these seemingly obscure problems, the same will affect the corporate image and user trust.

£ (3) Free mailbox Problem more

The use of free mailbox as a commercial application, not only affect the corporate image, and even greater loss. We can often see some small business site left free email address, may be accustomed to, even in many business executives business card, advertising, corporate promotional materials, and other occasions also appear free mailbox. From the functional, regardless of the free mailbox, or the enterprise's dedicated mailbox can play the role of information transmission, but the free mailbox has a lot of defects, even if not to consider the technical factors and the limitations of the service providers, even in the normal use of the situation sometimes will have serious consequences, such as a more invisible problem, has not aroused enough attention, that is the confidentiality of the free mailbox. Free mailbox service providers usually have a lot of users, the same domain name under the more close to the user name, such as Editor@163.net and editor@163.com, or editor@163.net and editor@263.net are very easy to confuse, a little attention , if you write the wrong addressee, it may lead to a leak. If you use the enterprise's own mailbox, the likelihood of such a thing happening will be greatly reduced.

(4) Picture format will be a delay

If the contact information and so on with the picture form to deal with it? We know that email address can be set up a "mailto:" link, the user clicks on the link can be directly pop-up system default email send program, for the convenience of contact, even if not immediately send mail, Email addresses in the form of text can also be easily copied to your address book or Notepad, when needed. If you make the e-mail address as a picture, the user will not be able to directly click or copy the e-mail address, in order to send e-mail to the company, have to manually put the e-mail address a character Fu a word to re-enter once, really artificially create trouble! Perhaps the user had already been impatient to go away, and if so lost
An important client, is it a pity? What's more, some sites for the pursuit of gorgeous effect, only when the mouse moved to the "contact" icon to show contact information, once removed the mouse, all the information has disappeared!

(5) Timely response to customers more important

Only the correct contact method is also far from enough, in addition to the website design and application should attach importance to the integrity and effectiveness of contact information, timely user/potential users of the email consultation is also very important, even if the site left a detailed contact method, If you do not respond to the customer's expected time or do not respond at all, the results may have a greater negative impact on the company.

A study by Jupiter Media Metrix, an internationally renowned research firm, showed that customers ' response time to email advice has been shrinking in the last three years, from 24 hours to 12 hours, and most recently, most customers want to be asked about customer service within 6 hours. Even a large number of customers are looking for immediate satisfaction with the service. But at present can do this business is not many, and mainly concentrated in the online retail, financial services and other fields, the traditional corporate web site can be in the customer's expected time to give back, the overall average of only 38% of the surveyed enterprises can reply within 6 hours, 33% Companies respond to emails from users for days or even longer, and some don't even give them a reply at all. More than half of the online retailers in the performance of the online retailer can meet the user's expectations, by contrast, because the user application of the Internet is more and more extensive, the traditional enterprise website services naturally difficult to be satisfied.

Like contact way so simple problem many enterprises are making different degrees of error, including many large enterprises and well-known enterprises, and this has the same important small details of the problem there are many, such as the reliability of the website information, Web page title of the normative, product/service Description of the integrity, to respond to the timeliness of customer inquiries and so on, Every detail problem is handled improperly, will affect to a certain extent the final effect of the enterprise website.