Today I was in a book store milling around the business section deciding what books to buy next. Searching for ‘Don’t make me think’ by Steve Krug a book that has been highly recommended to me by numerous people. Apparently the book is the bible for website functionally design and testing, which in my mind is a fundamentally important element to be a successful business topic. After a few minutes looking for the book I resorted to looking for it in the store PC. It was in the Internet section, not the business section. Logical yes, but shouldn’t business decision makers be reading this book as well as the web developer? Take that one step further and say that all frontline, customer centric managers should read a book like this and apply it to their actual physical locations.
Ask yourself, have you seen someone walk into your store, office or bar and look lost?
Do you regularly get frustrated by people who ask you the most basic of questions about your business?
Are your staff always complaining about how dumb customers are?
If you answer yes to these question you may have issues with physical location functionality.
The premise of web functionally testing is when customers are on a web site and cannot find what they want? They leave annoyed? This is bad for immediate conversion rates and statistically leads to the loss of a repeat customer who, from now on will think negative thoughts about your business. Why? Basically it all boils down to leaving the user frustrated, angry and feeling stupid. All bad for your business.
Today I work with and experience businesses who seem to forget about the functionally of their physical locations. Businesses need to find out how user friendly their businesses are, they need to figure out at what points people get confused and how they can fix them. Functionality can also be affected by things like staffing levels, new promotions, marketing material down to details like are your bathrooms clearly marked.
There is a lot to gain by bringing in some fresh eyes on your business systems, your branding, your signage and any processes your customers are involved in. You can bring in a consultant or simply ask someone you know (pay them) that has not been to your business to spend some time helping you. Ask them…
Can you find the toilet?
From the signs can you explain the current promotion back to me?
What are the services that this business offers?
Can you call our recorded phone message and retrieve some information?
Etc, etc
Watch what they do? Ask them where they got lost? Ask what was effective? Ask for their advice on what would improve the business. Tweak the questions to your business and organize follow up questions before starting.
The most important thing to realize is, if you make the customer work to hard to spend money with you, you will lose them.
Cheers
Josh Mackey
Passionate about innovating, communicating, and executing great customer experiences.
You can contact me at josh.mackey@ymail.com
