Deliver On Your Promise Or Your Brand Suffers
Deliver On Your Promise Or Your Brand SuffersMy gym membership is up for renewal and I don't think I'll renew.
My family and I do a fair bit of exercise - most mornings we'll ride down to the beach at 6 am and go for a swim and then cycle home (up a big, big hill).
Every second night Laura (my 13 yo daughter) and I go for a 30 minute run.
Most weekends we'll go for long bike rides. And as I write this my wife is off having a personal training session.
Start A Home Gym
So I thought I'd get a half decent exercise bench and some weights and start setting up my home gym.
Yesterday I checked out 3 places. One was a place called Elite Fitness at a place called Tweed Heads - about 15 kms away. The other 2 were closer to home.
At Elite Fitness I found the bench I wanted. and said to the Sales Assistant "I'll buy that one. Can I take it now?"
Nope, I couldn't. I could get it delivered on Friday. I didn't want it Friday, I wanted it now.
I hadn't visited the competition yet, so I said to the Sales Assistant that I'd try somewhere else and get back to her.
"Visit Our Web site....."
Before I left she gave me the brochure and said I could check out the bench on their web site. So off I went and checked out the other 2 gym supply places. But I still liked the bench at Elite.
So yesterday afternoon I jumped online to buy it. It's the Powerhouse 764 Bench. I added it to my cart and went to checkout. But I got an error page. I tried a few more times and gave up.
I revisited this morning to buy and, when I tried to pay, got the error page (I tested buying lots of products and received error pages everytime).
Couple of things there:
1. Their web site is damaging their business. It doesn't do what it promises to do (which is make it easy to buy).
2. Now they face the risk of losing an initial sale of about $650 (I'll buy some weights too), but all of the add-on purchases I would make over the next few years AND any referrals I might have given them.
Another thing is that the vast majority of people would simply walk away from the site, never to return (and they wouldn't let the site owner know. And yes, I did give the site owner a heads up.).
All because their shopping cart doesn't work.
Make it as easy to buy for your customers. They want to give you their money - so let them.
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: Note added 10.10 am 25 February 2005: I emailed Elite Fitness yesterday at 10 am - received an automatic response:
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E-Mail Confirmation
Thank you Brendon, Your request for more information has been received.
This is a Automatic response.
The Web Site and E-mail address are manned through business hours/days only,Your request will be tended to within 24 hours.info@elitefitness.com.auElite Fitness - http://www.elitefitness.com.au/Freecall (Australia Only): 1800 622 644Fax: (07) 3803 4774
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The 24 hours is up and I haven't heard back
That's me as a customer trying to spend $650 with them (not to mention the add on sales and referrals they would have gotten). And this business just doesn't seem to want it.
This is one of the reasons I always say to people that you can be successful in business.....because a lot of the time you're dealing with clowns like this business.
P.P.S: On Monday February 28 2.11 pm I sent another email saying I'd emailed last Wednesday and was still awaiting a response from Elite Fitness. No response today.
P.P.P.S: 1 March 2005 - 6 days after I sent my email telling them I wanted to buy but their online shop wasn't working.
Oh my Gawd! They've replied.
Here's the reply:
Dear Brendan (note: spelt it wrong)
Sorry about the delay, I do not have your e-mail, however they are split between 2 e-mail address and the owner of the other address is interstate.
Please resend your enquiry by replying to this e-mail.
Regards
xxxx xxxxxxxxxx
The e-commerce part of this business could/should be a major part of their overall business strategy. But they don't seem to have identified that as yet.
Cheers
Brendon
[ comments ]
To make matters worse you have to create an account on their site to make an order. So, I spent about 40 minutes browsing their site. When I was ready to submit my order I had to spend another 5 minutes entering in a bunch of information. I click proceed and I get a big error message.
I have generally have positive experiences with online shopping. If I'm about to buy a $100+ item from a new store I will shoot them an e-mail asking them a question or two. I'm amazed how many don't even bother replying -- this has happened to me numerous times.
Business sucess is undoubtedly not about blind luck -- its about serving your customer ;)
The next site I ordered from, I entered all of my information on one page -- shipping, CC, e-mail. When I clicked order it said Priority Mail was the only option for my State. It sent me back to the page where I had to re-enter all of my information. Take a guess what I did instead.
This raises some very interesting observations about shopping cart conversion rates.
There are a lot of online cigar stores out there. They managed to not only get me to visit their site, but actually spend time and get ready to buy something. But they lost me on the last step. Because now I need to go to bed!
Just a pointer, I think it is very important for e-commerce sites to closely monitor their stats to see where they are losing potential conversions. It really does go beyond just database errors.
The big thing I always think about people settiung up e-commerce sites is they have to be serious about it.
Can you imagine if someone came into your shop, selected what they want to buy and when they went to pay the salesperson said "Oh sorry, the checkout isn't working. Come back tomorrow - it may or may not be working then."
It ain't going to happen. But that's what happens all the time on the web.
Cheers
Brendon
However, I went to navigate around their site some more and instead it sent me to a survey page. "We are sorry you did not finish the checkout process..." and then it asked why I stopped the checkout process. Great idea! My only further suggestion for them would to be add a pop up survey when the order page is closed.
Lest anyone think I'm just railing aginst them, had an interesting problem like this recently myself .. I don't use my site for ecommerce at this time, had a query from a new customer though who foiund me from my site ... he wants to write a check ... guess who neglected to finish some off-line paperwork regarding a sales tax issue .. Du'oh .. getting it done now boss, shame on me
Best regards
Dave
www.satviz.com
I cannot believe how many times something similar happens to me.
The keys lies with hiring smart people and allowing them the responsibility to do smart things.
3 days or so ago I sent a thank you to Brendon and his staff for his wonderful site, articles and (soon to be mine) business kit.
When I read about the mispelling of his name I realised that in my email I had broken about 100 of Brendons rules for marketing.
New rule for me: Pay more attention!
My appologies Brendon thanks for the very good foot up the backside :)
Bruce
PS. I have made a lot of changes to my site the last 3 days purely based on your ideas and I have to tell you, I have a GREAT feeling about it. I will be adding you to my list of useful links if thats ok?