Chapter 2: What the customers want?

Customers expect a Web site to improve the services they are giving to them. Getting things done easier, faster, and smarter. Customers expect something unlikely when they open a Web site, they expect business to have them experience the service they deserve and provide them help for getting things done.

Type of things they want to do while on a business Web site?

Customers want to seek information, ask questions, alternatives, make choices and make things happen as easy as one click once they have made up their mind. 2. Customers want to know what the business and their competitors are up to.
1.

Why people use the web and the experiences they have.
(From Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center of Georgia Technology Institute)

From the survey that GVU had conducted customers use the Web: to perform specific tasks related to services and products businesses provide. to know different types of information and features of Web vendors. serves as a medium were a customer relies on and is a very important part of the decision making process of the customers. Knowing these things helps us to create more customer effective Web site. People visits the Web weekly to seek out product information and use the Web as a source in making a purchase decision. People browse product information and search several times each week or month without the explicit intent to buy. The Web experience may or may not lead directly to purchase a product.

What customers want to do on the Web under Five Doing Areas. 1. Evaluate competing businesses and products.
Customers decide or choose between the business and the competing business on which product to buy. Customers search for information or evaluate the Web site if t hey are new to the market. Customers want to make sure that the Web site is legal or if it safe to purchase products from them. Customers who already have previous deals with the business are less likely to search for their general company information. Company must offer the product that the customer want and what they are looking for. Customers evaluate different products that is offered by the company and its competitor. Customers may also evaluate product information available in brochures. Customers evaluate and seek information to find out what suit them best, how much that will cost and how easily could they get it.

The more useful the information, the more likely they are to spend time evaluating them. If product information is not useful, chances are customers will abandon your Web site for someone elses.

2. Select Products and Transact with E-Service providers.

Customers make selection to personalize their experience and the services and products they receive. Selection may lead to a transaction. It is either financial or not. E-customers will find Web site irrelevant if they do not receive anything or something relevant and useful in return. E-customers provide personal information to those Web site that would provide them something valuable in return.

3. Get Help.
Customers will interact with your site to: Work out how to use your site. Customers want to learn how to get around and optimize the use of your site as quickly and easily as possible. Find out how something works once they have it. Resolve a problem online. Find out where to go, or whom to talk to, if they have a problem that cant be easily resolved online.

4. Provide Feedback.
Customers will provide feedback on what experience theyve had with you. People can have a good moan without having to talk to someone personally. Customers feedback may be positive or negative. Positive in a way that other may know how good your services are and in a negative way that it can create a bad image on your Web site. Feedback from customers may also help you to get things right.

5. Stay tuned in as e-customers.

Even if customers are not transacting with you on a frequent basis they will still use your Web site to: Access and maintain any information theyve given you or that you share as a result of your service relationship. Be sure theyve gotten the best deal you can provide. Access special deals or offers. Get the most out of the product theyve purchased.

Seventeen Customer Directives

1. This better be worth the wait. Everything that we offer on the Web should be subject to the customer expectations. Slow download speed.

Companies should complete each page of the Web site before they offer it to the customers and before they offer it online. UNDER CONSTRUCTION the company needs to handle this situation appropriately. Customers will lose their interest on the Web site if they spend so much time but at the end theyll find that the page their searching for is under construction. DEAD ENDS if the Web does not offer something new to the customers. A page should not be offered if there is no new content available on it. MULTIPLICITY different variables but same information and outcome. Customers would not bother to browse different paths if they always end up on the same outcome. GRATUITOUS CONTENT AND FUNCTIONALITY Customers see other interesting and creative things and devices on the Web but they would find this as gratuitous, for them it is just part of their journey while waiting. NAVIGATION LEADING TO NOTHING when the Web offers something like tips from other customers then when they click at it, there are chances that it contains nothing. Customers will get annoyed specially when it comes with the prices of the products. WORTHLESS DOWNLOADS Example of this is a pop up ads or TV ads, that is when you click on the picture of the Ad it starts downloading. The Web should make sure that it has more information for the customers to complement the ads.

2. Tell me what I get if I do this. Never ask for information without stating what the e-customer will get in return. Customers need to make an informed decision of whether or not it is worth their while to make a process on the Web. The more we can tell customers about the consequences of their actions, the better. BLIND ACTION AND HIDDEN CONSEQUENCES Customers dont know what transaction theyve done until after the transaction. The company should notify the customer that they have successfully purchased the product from them, if they would not receive anything from you they would feel uncertain and would probably not make a purchase on your Web. HIDDEN TIME REQUIREMENTS Customers would not mind investing a little bit of their time on your Web knowing that they would find good things on your page but it may annoy them if there is an unexpected pop ad that would require them to download first before they could go on and browse the page.

BLIND REGISTRATION There are two types of registration, the complimentary and the client accounts. Complimentary accounts only access a piece of the research they are looking for. While, client accounts has access to a full transcript of the research.

3. Ill ID myself when Im ready. Customers may be anonymous or they want you to know them. If customers has already a history transacting with you they might want you to know who they are. Forcing a customer to identify themselves early would prevent them on going through with it.

4. Use what I give you. When customers give their information make sure that youll make use of what youve asked them to give to you. Customers expect that youd remember things and information about them so that you would not bother them to ask the same question over and over. GO-NOWHERE SELECTION its like telling the customer to go to this page then returning again to where they started, or rather giving them information that is not accurate, that wouldnt help them at all. INSUFFICIENT MEMORY For example a customer wants to purchase a product on the Web then when they click the product it requires the same information theyve already entered, then again when theyve finished entering the information there are a lot of forms to fill up again for the purchase. Its a hassle for the customer to enter the same information again and again.

5. Let me build my knowledge. Customers expect a Web site to make sense in relation on all of the dealings and exposure they make to the company. Customers want to know anything that is new to them not the things they already knew. When customers already know your company they want you to provide them new things, something they dont have. INCOMPLETE OFFERING A company offering a customer something that has to do with linking him to another web page but has the same service as the previous page. INSUFFICIENT INTERACTIVITY - The Web site does not provide the customer with information relevant to their particular situation. Chances are that this company will not win the sale as the customer moves on to check out the next Web site.

6. Let me make a valid comparison. Customer always want to have different options so they go to a website then jump to another to find and compare the product they are looking for.

INCONSISTENT PRODUCT INFORMATION Lack of information of the product the company is offering makes comparison difficult to the customers. IGNORING RELATIVITY - Customers also struggle when Web sites ignore obvious relationships between products they are evaluating. Some products are obviously related, but the Web site does not relate those products at all through content or even basic navigation. DIFFICULT PRODUCT COMPARISON A site offers information on a range of checking accounts then a customer starts to evaluate the first one, after evaluating the first one he has to go back to evaluate the second one. It would have been helpful to evaluate those options at the same time as evaluating the checking account, not to mention being able to get between products without having to go forward and back all the time. COMPANY STRUCTURE VERSUS PRODUCT COMPARISON - customer goes to the consulting companys Web site and clicks through on products and services to get a list of broad service areas. The services can be clicked on for more information. The customer then goes back to the home page and realizes that this is an international home page and that they will need to select a country-specific Web site in order to get information on services. Given that this customer is in the United States, they select the U.S. Web site. Now they click through on products and services and get a list as long as your arm. The customer clicks on the service he would find interesting, but on clicking this service he finds himself on a new web site, each service has its own site. As a result, the customer then phones the consultant to find the service he needs.

7. Dont expect me to make decision without the facts. Customers have to know sufficient information before they make a decision to purchase a product. INAPPROPRIATE TIMING Dont make the customers feel pressured on purchasing the product right away, like putting a buy now button on the side of your product. MISSING FACTS Customers would bail on your Web site if you wouldnt put the information they quite need to make a decision. (Ex. Price of the product.)

8. Be careful second-guessing my needs. The better we know our customers, the more we can directly give their needs. PERSONALIZATION - personalization is dependent on whats being personalized. Customers just cant be bothered with the process of personalization unless they get something thats useful to them. And, of course, the process has to be user-friendly as well. Customers do not want to go through a painful process to create something that may not end up being useful to them. RECOMMENDATIONS Web sites makes recommendation to customers, they would find it useful or just a waste of their time. A web site should only recommend information

on what they know and find out what they dont know before giving recommendation to customers. DECISION SUPPORT - Customers want to find out which product or service is best for them, and some Web sites will offer content and/or functionality to help them make the best choice. ILL- INFORMED SOLUTIONS Giving solutions that leads to a long list not having the best solution or having a solution but still not enough a customer needs to know. It would make customers to unlikely go back to the page. PERSONALIZED IRRELEVANCE Why would I want to personalize that? What would it be to the customer if he personalizes that page? What good can it give to him?

9. Let me go to where I need to go. Web sites dont just allow customers to do the things they need to do as customers. LACK OF UTILITY Web sites does not give access to the people; they would only give generic e-mail address or phone number which is not that helpful on the part of the customer. Frustration occurs to customers when they cant transfer their transaction with the online medium, when they cant access their personal information online. Customers expect to get closer to the business they are transacting with. INFORMATION CLASSIFICATION - Information has to be classified into areas that customers can access. That information can be cut many different ways, and the particular approach adopted may help or hinder customers. when information classification gets in the way of customers doing the things they need to do, they get annoyed and frustrated.
OBSTRUSIVE CONTENT - Customers get frustrated when they come to a Web site

already knowing what they want and end up going through an interminable process of unnecessary persuasion. They want to go straight to the object of their desire, not churn through marketing blurb. HIDDEN UTILITY A service which a customer needs to do on the site but does not know where to find it. Scrolling down a bit then the customer would find what he was looking for. It was there, just four layers down. HELPFULNESS AS HINDRANCE A customer wants to evaluate a car where make and model where known. As he search a site it makes only duplicate on the home page and the categories of the cars. As a result customer fails to find the car they want to evaluate.

10. Yes, I want it, Now what?.

-When a Web site does not give them the option to select or purchase, or they have to go through

some convoluted process to end up doing something other than purchasing it.

HYPE AND NO HUSTLE Not giving all of the information a customer needs to purchase or buy a product. Rather giving the customer a hard time filling up several forms to buy the product.

11. Signpost my journey. Web sites need to provide customers signposts to know where they are going. These navigation may help customers to find they way around their Web site.

NAVIGATION SYSTEM - If a Web site introduces customers to a navigation system up front, they expect it to apply throughout the whole site, without exception. Customers very quickly lose their grasp of your navigation system if the hierarchy is messed up.
NAVIGATION DEVICES it is the elements of the Web site that allow customers to get

around within the basic navigational structure. There are some simple devices that help customers, and, when these are not used properly, they cause the most problems: Inconsistent or non-existent highlighting to show where the customer is on the site. Changes in the color of links. What is clickable? Sending no feedback on where customers have been. Misleading or nonexistent labels. Unknown search functions. Inconsistent and misleading use of iconography. Multiple windows. Misleading visual symbols. Vague use of indexes. CONFLICTING NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEM links that are fake, does have nothing to do with the site. ABSENCE OF A NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEM Web sites have links that would link customer to different pages it would make difficult for them to navigate by going back to the home page to click another link. A customer asks Why couldnt they just put links to all the sections on all the pages to save me going backward and forward all the time?. TOO MANY HOMES A site that has too many homes may confused the customers.

12. Dont lock me out. Some Web sites offer different access to different users. In other words, some customers can get at some information while others cant. The users who can get at this privileged information will have to identify, or authenticate, themselves to gain access. BADLY PLACED AND POORLY EXPLAINED AUTHENTICATION Customers want to find article on recent research but the site requires that all customers and clients

would have to register first. As a result, Customer research company to find out why they dont have access to research articles. 13. Dont limit my choices. Poor navigation will, of course, restrict the choices customers have because they wont be able to make the appropriate selections to get to where they need to go.

CLASSIFYING CUSTOMERS different customers means different needs. Web sites need to classify customers to help direct them to different information. DROP-DOWN LIST - They offer finite parameters to customer selections, and that can be very helpful and useful to customers. SEARCH it is one of the most useful tools customers have to get to where they want to go around the site. CUSTOMER SERVICE A web site should be able to provide and meet the services need by the customer. INSUFFICIENT CHOICES choices on the Web site are insufficient for the customer. RESTRICTIVE SEARCH CRITERIA the search engine only produce results that are pinned or anchored, on location only. Not directly to the one the customer had searched for. LIMITED CUSTOMER SERVICE Customer service is only limited. The site cant provide the necessary service the customer need.

14. Give me digestable chunks. Give information that is direct to the point. Meaning, one sentence or paragraph would be enough for a customer.

15. Call a spade a spade. Call things exactly what they are.

Some examples of customer criticism follow: HomeDont call it home unless it is. Site mapIs it a map or just a basic list of links that doesnt help direct me SearchIs it actually a way of searching relevant information or just a rudimentary index. ContactSo, give me the contacts then! Buy nowThis doesnt mean register interest, or see if you qualify, or anything else, it means buy now! HelpDont give me vague information on irrelevant stuff; I need to know how to solve my problem.

FeedbackI dont think you actually want it. Special dealsDoesnt look like much of a deal for a customer whos especially come to your Web site to find it.

16. Tell me the info you need. Tell customers directly the information they need and provide them service they deserve. SUCCESS THROUGH TRIAL AND ERROR ONLY Not filling up the necessary information the web needs leads to an error message to the customers that they would have to fill in all the questions the form needs to generate it. As a result, customer need to again fill up the form and fill in the blank spaces they outnumbered.

17. Dont ignore important relationships. Some customer have very important personal relationships with the people inside. Customers often expect these relationships to carry over to the Web.

Customers and Organizations

Customers and businesses dont necessarily want the same things. Businesses often want to create or change customer behavior. They want to influence the services customers use in different situations and the way they use them. Creating customer-effective Web sites can be a win-win propositionits just a balancing act. A company has to deliberately consider the customer needs they cannot meet and work out how that is going to be handled. if a business gets its first attempt at electronic service so wrong that customers have a bad experience, it may not be given a second chance to get it right.