FREEDyourMind

Simple Tips on Managing Website Visitor Expectations

Here's how I define satisfaction:

Satisfaction = What You Get + What You Expect

So one of the ways to manage satisfaction is to manage visitor expectations. A couple of examples:

#1  We work with a CPG brand site that sells all its products through third party retailers. The retailers themselves set the prices, and so the brand site itself doesn't have info on prices. Through surveys, they found out people are coming to the site for 3 reasons: 1) to find a product 2) to check out specs 3) to get a price. Based on this intelligence, the web team had been fighting corporate policy to try and get permission to post prices, which just wouldn't work. Finally, they decided to just make a note on the website, letting  visitors know that they won't find prices and why. This turned out to be a simple solution that effectively managed expectations.

#2 We work with a service company that provides an online price quote engine. However, you cannot actually purchase the service online, because the business model is to funnel business to local offices. So not only can you not complete the transaction online, when you try to, you get a screen that says to "call local office" which could even imply that you've made a mistake. People were getting annoyed that they had been through the whole process online only to be routed to a local office at the end.  Our recommendation - inform the visitor upfront about the quote process rather than try to change the business model.  It was a really simple idea that hadn't been considered.

#3 Many retailers  forget to update their promotions (both on site and email) based on product inventory.  How would you feel after receiving an email promoting that hot new product you want and after visiting the site and seeing that home page promotion of the same product only to find out when going to check out that the product is out of stock.  Your expectations are not met and you leave dissatisfied.  Isn't honesty the best policy? Don't promote those out of stock products.

If your visitors or customers are  unhappy with an aspect of your website, our advice is usually that if it is an item that has a high impact on your overall satisfaction, you should change it or improve it however you can. However, sometimes for practical or business reasons that just isn't possible. You know what they say--the best offense is a good defense. Sometimes the best defense can be to manage expectations.

The Role of Campaign Websites

Spending some time on Obama and McCain's websites yesterday got me thinking more about the role of the campaign website: just like any brand website (and a candidate is a brand), they have to decide if the website's primary goal is to educate and win over undecided people, or if it is to engage and solidify support/money/loyalty/volunteer hours from the true believers.

Obviously a good website would do both, and if they're measuring satisfaction with their website, they could predict the likelihood of website visitors to donate, volunteer, even vote the same way an e-retailer can use customer satisfaction to predict likelihood to purchase or recommend. Taking it a step further, they could identify which specific website elements would have the most impact on the future behaviors they're trying to elicit: maybe tweaks to navigation would result in more online donations. Maybe better site performance would make it easier for people to use the website to volunteer.

In terms of whether a campaign site should be reeling in undecideds or increasing loyalty of supporters, it seems like Obama is trying to do both. In the wake of securing the Democratic nomination, BarackObama.com is clearly aimed at winning over former Clinton supporters; the home page has a huge "Thank you, Senator Clinton" banner with a button you can click to send Hillary a note thanking her for her candidacy.

McCain's website, on the other hand, with NCAA picks and golf gear, seems aimed more at educating and informing people who are already solid McCain supporters, while sending signals that McCain is a likable, regular guy.

Interestingly, last week Hitwise says that BarackObama.com had 86% of the market share compared to 14% for johnmccain.com. This week it's 79.7 vs. 20.3--still a huge gap. That's not entirely surprising since Democrats tend to be younger and Republicans tend to be older (and younger and older demographics correlate strongly with internet usage). But it is a surprisingly large disparity for candidates that some polls having running neck-in-neck. If I were on McCain's campaign staff, I would not be thrilled with that stat.

Howard Dean's campaign in 2004 was the first to really harness the power of the internet and email for a political campaign, and although his bid was ultimately unsuccessful, it changed the game forever more. It will be interesting to see how these sites evolve and change over the next 5-6 months before the election.

Putting your political opinions aside, tell me what you think of the candidates' websites.

An X Change with Eric Peterson: Come to His Web Analytics Conference!

My good friends Eric Peterson with Web Analytics Demystified and Gary Angel of Semphonics are sponsoring this year's X Change conference, to be held August 17-19 in San Francisco.

I can't believe I won't be able to make it this year, though Eric Head, our director of business development, will be there. In preparation for the conference, Eric Peterson answered a few of my burning questions.

LF: What is the objective of the X Change and how does it differ from other analytics conferences?

EP: The objective of X Change is to promote conversation, sharing of ideas, and peer-based education between expert users of web analytics and related technologies.  The conference differs from other analytics conferences because we eschew the traditional Conference 1.0 "Sit and Listen" format for a Conference 2.0 "Gather and Talk" format.  This format, facilitated by small group conversations on highly relevant topics, allows participants to learn directly from their peers and contribute in a way not possible at other conferences.

The conference format is a response to the tremendous body of knowledge on digital measurement that has built up in the expert user and practitioner community.  We learned last year at the first X Change that if you give exceptionally bright people a highly personalized venue to share their ideas, they will gladly do so.

LF: With a “total absence of sales messaging and sponsored talks”, who will pick up the bar tab?

EP: We do.  The X Change conference is run as a break-even proposition for Semphonic and Web Analytics Demystified, a decision that the team at Semphonic made early on to eliminate the vendor posturing that has become so common at conferences today.  No booths, no sponsored talks, no goodie bags full of stuff you don't really want ... just highest-quality content targeting people who are serious about web analytics.

It's not that we don't love the vendors --- you know I love you Larry!  But we've taken a different approach towards that segment of our community.  Semphonic and Web Analytics Demystified have personally invited a handful of recognized experts in the web analytics vendor community, people like Aaron Gray from WebTrends, Eric Hansen from SiteSpect, John Squire from Coremetrics, Eric Head from ForeSee Results, and around a dozen others.  By specifically inviting vendor thought leaders we're again able to increase the quality of content and conversation at X Change.

I suppose, as usual thanks to my participation in Web Analytics Wednesday, there will be some type of uber-analytics event held separate from the X Change on Tuesday, August 19th in San Francisco where I will (again) be cajoling the likes of you to help me pay for drinks --- it wouldn't be a web analytics conference if I wasn't asking my buddy Larry for money for drinks, would it?

LF:  Okay, assuming my readers are sold on the conference already, with or without an open bar on my dime, how can they get registered?

EP:  Thanks for asking!  Since the conference is designed to be very intimate we're only accepting 100 registrations.  Since we're well on our way to selling X Change 2008 out completely, your readers might want to head over to:

http://www.semphonic.com/conf/registration.asp

I am personally happy to take any of your readers questions about the conference, as are the folks at Semphonic.  You can reach me at eric@webanalyticsdemystified and Gary Angel at gangel@semphonic.com. 

LF: What are the expected outcomes or takeaways?

EP: The key takeaway that we hope to provide to all participants is a much refined sense of the state of the industry today and a personal sense of where their organization needs to be headed.  We have conversations planned on tons of important topics including mobile marketing and measurement, video, data integration, industry standards, process ... there are over 30 different topics for participants to join over the two day event.  Our hope is that every participant, regardless of experience level, will walk away from their conversations with action items they can take back to the office and integrate into their web analytics efforts.

Additionally, Semphonic and Web Analytics Demystified will be summarizing all of the conversations and producing a "Proceedings of the Second Annual X Change Conference" document that will be free to all participants.  We're doing this in recognition that A) conference attendees cannot join all of the conversations but they will surely benefit from knowing what was discusses and B) the outcomes from these conversations have tremendous potential to shape our industry moving forward.

LF: Is this conference only for advanced practitioners, or is there a way some of those earlier in their maturity in the web measurement field will be able to benefit?

EP: While we are certainly targeting more advanced practitioners, based on last year's conference I think that web analytics professionals of any level of experience will benefit from the X Change.  Several of the attendees from last year's conference who were newer to the field expressed to me that X Change was hugely valuable despite being somewhat of a fire-hose of information.  All that is required to benefit from the X Change is a profound interest in web analytics and a desire to know as much as possible about the whole process of measurement in the online world

LF: Explain the “huddles” and what attendees will get out of them.

EP: The "huddles" are our conversational format, the basis for the entire conference.  Rather than having a room of 300 people sit and listen to some expert pontificate, the X Change format has around 15 people around a table talking to each other about their experiences, challenges, and successes.  Facilitated by expert practitioners from companies like AOL, PayPal, Yahoo!, Avaya, Sony Pictures Imageworks Interactive, The Gap, Intuit, Turner Broadcasting, and a dozen others, this format is a refreshing change from Conference 1.0.  

The huddles target a certain type of individual in our industry --- someone with enough experience to know what they're talking about and are not afraid to share those experience.  Honestly this is really the only venue in our industry that I know of where people can share their experiences openly.  The Web Analytics Forum I founded in 2004 isn't really appropriate, other conferences have gotten pretty large, and the vendor events are, well, about the vendors.  But the format works, trust me, it works!

The best way to get a sense of what attendees will get out of the huddle format is to have a look at the 2008 Huddle Topics that we've put online. Here you can see exactly what we'll be talking about and make a list of the topics that most interest you personally.  

LF: What about this conference are you most looking forward to?

EP: Well, this is the first year that I've been a partner in the conference so personally I'm looking forward to everything!  Gary and Joel from Semphonic asked me to coordinate the huddle leaders and content for the event so I'm hugely excited to see the conversations in action.  Also, given the star talent that has already registered for the event --- industry rock stars like Jim Sterne and June Dershewitz from the Web Analytics Association, all three web analytics industry analysts (Megan Burns from Forrester, Bill Gassman from Gartner, and John Lovett from JupiterResearch), Josh Manion from Stratigent, Andy Fisher from Avenue A/Razorfish, and Aurelie Pols from Europe's LBi/OX2 --- I'm also looking forward to the side-conversations, the dinners, the Lobby Bar, and general networking we'll be doing.

Plus, did I mention that the conference will be held at San Francisco's Ritz Carlton hotel?  Gary and Joel really outdid themselves on the venue, booking this five star hotel and getting conference attendees a special rate.  A lot of us remember the "good old days" of Emetrics at Santa Barbara's gorgeous Four Seasons Biltmore hotel --- we hope that the Ritz will be our Biltmore.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is sleeping.  I guess I will sleep on Wednesday when the conference is over.

LF: Tell me about last year’s conference. Any changes from last year to this year?

EP: The major change we made is that last year vendors and consultants led the conversations but this year all of the conversations are being led by end-user practitioners.  We made that decision for one major reason: At the end of the day, we believe the conference is about making things better for the people in our industry who are actually on the hook to produce results.  It is our belief that conversations led by expert users of analytics and joined by vendor thought leaders and some of the great consultants working in our industry will simply produce better sessions.

This was kind of a controversial decision to make, especially since we are consultants and it meant that even we wouldn't be able to lead huddles!  But by-and-large the vendors and consultants have been pretty understanding and have still signed up to attend the conference.  I think this speaks volumes to the quality and uniqueness of the conference --- we said, "Not only can you not lead a huddle but you also have to pay your own way to X Change" and still they are coming, how great is that!

Also new this year is the "Proceedings of the Second Annual X Change" document I described above which will be free to all conference attendees.  One of the few complaints about last year's event was basically "I wanted to attend all of the huddles!"  While we can't stop time, we can capture the essence of each of these huddles and document it such that every participant can see what the key questions and key insights were in each session.

Finally, did I mention the hotel?  I think I did.  Last year the location was nice (in Napa Valley) but I am personally expecting the Ritz to be a whole different experience.

Larry, thanks for interviewing me about the X Change.  I'm hugely bummed out that you personally cannot join us but I understand, family first.  It will be nice to see Eric Head from ForeSee playing the part of Larry Freed! Remember, we're limited to the first 100 people who sign up so if your readers are interested in the conference I encourage them to head over to:

http://www.semphonic.com/conf/registration.asp

Again, I am personally happy to take any of your readers questions about the conference, as are the folks at Semphonic.  You can reach me at eric@webanalyticsdemystified and Gary Angel at gangel@semphonic.com.

 

Moody's Acknowledges Impact of Online Sales

Interesting article from Internet Retailer this week...

Moody’s Investors Service Inc., a major Wall Street credit-rating agency, announced today that it is giving greater weight to online sales in rating the debt of retailers.

“As online sales become a larger percentage of total sales for individual issuers, and as online spending gains a bigger share of overall retail spending, a retailer’s Internet strategy is becoming a more important factor in Moody’s credit analysis,” says vice president and senior credit officer Margaret Taylor. “A strong online presence is considered a ratings positive more frequently than in the past, because it represents such an important channel of distribution and can mitigate declining comparable-store sales trends.”
 . . .
Taylor gives several examples of how online sales have significantly impacted the results, and thus the credit ratings, of major retailers. For instance, she notes apparel retailer Gap Inc. softened the impact of a 4% decline in same-store sales in fiscal 2007 with 23.7% growth in online sales to $903 million, and chain J.C. Penney Co. Inc. partly offset flat comp-store sales with 15% growth in online sales to $1.5 billion.

This is interesting and important validation of the online channel for retailers.

What Metrics Do the Best of the Best Use?

Just saw this post from Ron Shevlin's blog last week... Ron does a report called the Hallmarks of High-Performing Integrated Marketers in Retail Financial Services which looks at which business practices and marketing strategies distinguish the high-performers from the rest of the pack.

From Ron's post:

"High-performers are more likely to measure the lift in customer satisfaction and average customer spend than other financial services firms. And less likely to measure likelihood to refer the brand and brand awareness . . .

The findings from the survey shows that high-performing firms put their emphasis on measuring the metrics that matter — those that measure and drive bottom-line performance. The under-performers can continue to look at NPS and brand awareness at their own risk."

In fact, according to the data in the post, customer satisfaction was the most commonly used metric for the highest performing firms, other than sales and average customer spend.

Of course, it can't go without saying that c-sat has to be measured with a time-tested methodology.

It's funny, the two most common statements I hear about measuring customer sat are in direct opposition to one another: "customer satisfaction is a proven predictor of financial success and ROI" and "customer satisfaction has no proven connection to financial success."

Both are true! Customer sat measures with a proven, time-tested, accurate, precise, reliable methodology have been proven in numerous academic articles to be leading indicators of financial success, loyalty, recommends, ROI, and even stock prices.

Customer sat measures which are based on a handful of questions, a haphazard methodology, or a marketing fad have no relationship to success, because they aren't accurate or predictive in nature.

So it's a challenge, from where I sit, to make the distinction for people. Saying "customer satisfaction predicts financial success" is like saying "food is healthy." Well, broccoli is healthy. Twinkies are not (but they do taste good). Both are considered food. And sometimes it's not as easy to tell the difference between predictive customer sat methodologies and cheap imitations.

So just ask. Ask for proof. Ask for academic citations. Ask for case studies. The proof is in the pudding, and if you put your vendor to the test, they should relish the chance to knock your socks off.

Grandfather Builds Browser for Autistic Grandson

Check out this AP story (that I got from Matt Roush's GLITR newsletter) about a grandfather who built a new web browser for his autistic grandson: fewer (and less overwhelming) choices, bigger icons, and disabling of extraneous keyboard buttons and the right mouse click: "commands most children don't need anyway, and [reducing] the chance an autistic child will lose confidence after making a counterproductive click."

What a great example of technology and innovation. And the grandfather is offering it for free to anyone who needs it.

The Value of Self-Reported Data

Farris Khan is Product Director at ForeSee Results and will be a contributing author to FreedYourMind.com. This is his first post.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I decided to go to PF Chang’s, a very popular restaurant near our home in Northville, MI. Usually we do not like to deal with the crowds, so we order takeout to get the same food without the long wait time. However, as is the case with many restaurants, it's more than just the food that makes the PF Chang's experience, so in this case, we decided to make an evening out of it.

As expected, it was hard to find a parking spot and there was quite a crowd out front.  I anticipated that we would have a considerable wait time as we walked up to the check-in podium.  We were given a pager and told that the wait time would be about 20 minutes. 

We turned around to find a seat.  I was surprised to see that most everyone seemed comfortable and relatively happy.  There were two huge comfortable areas for waiting that included padded seating.  The menus were readily available for those that wanted to get a head start on deciding what they wanted.  The restaurant also had a large bar for those that were interested in spending some time there before dinner.  There was a large landscaped area in the front for those who wanted to enjoy the weather while waiting outside.

Being in the customer satisfaction industry, I had a natural inclination to check the time and see if the table would really be ready in 20 minutes.  I took look at my cell phone to check the time, sat down and started talking with my wife.  The comfortable atmosphere actually made a negative (waiting for the table) into a positive (enjoying the entire experience, not just the food). 

I enjoyed the time in the lobby so much that I was not able to get an accurate read of how long it actually took us to get a seat because I neglected to look at my cell phone until after we actually sat down.  I do believe that the wait time was actually more than 20 minutes (perhaps 22 minutes?).  However, if I did not consciously look at the time initially with the intent of measure this metric, I would have guessed that I waited only about 15 minutes.

If I were responsible for Customer Satisfaction for PF Chang’s, I may employ two entirely different strategies to improve the pre-dinner satisfaction experience.

Option 1:
If I were focused on “Hard metrics”, I may focus on reducing the average wait time, let us assume from 22 minutes to 15 minutes.  I could serve people faster and therefore reduce the average time that people were sitting at the table. I could increase the restaurant capacity.

If I were to act on the first metric, reducing wait time, I would have likely increased the capacity by adding tables while making the lobby and bar smaller and more uncomfortable.  The net effect may have been to reduce the wait time to 15 minutes.   However, this action may actually have had a negative impact on satisfaction and perceived wait time.  Perhaps the actual wait time would now be reduced to 15 minutes, but the perceived wait time would actually be perhaps 22 minutes (the reverse of what actually happened).

Option 2:
Another strategy would be to measure the attitudes of people in terms of how long they think they waited and also how satisfied they were with the pre-dinner experience.  Assuming that most people felt like me, they likely perceived the time to be less than it actually was.  Also, the wait actually may have improved (not reduced) satisfaction and likely generated positive revenue (appetizer and drink sales before dinner).

If I were to act on these attitude and perception metrics, I would be more focused on improving pre-dinner satisfaction and perceived wait time (not actual wait time).  I would likely want to keep the perceived wait time to be under 15 minutes (even if the actual wait time was 22 minutes).  I would also focus efforts to adding to the pre-dinner experience such as providing a sample of some of the new entrees and adding some additional seating outside.  This effort would hopefully increase pre-dinner satisfaction.

Satisfaction Lesson Learned:
While knowing the actual average wait time is important, knowing satisfaction and the perceived wait time may be equally or even more important.  The accurate measurement of attitudes including satisfaction and perceived experience is often more valuable than the measurement of a “hard” metric.

As a website manager, you may focus looking at metrics such as page views or task completion or "engagement".  When you spend money and effort doing this,  please do not forget to think about the "restaurant pre-dinner metrics".  Accurately measuring visitor satisfaction and perceptions may actually be more important than accurately measuring what the visitor actually did on the site.

The Impact of Gas Prices on Online Shopping

One of the things we asked as part of our Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index was whether people planned to spend more or less online or offline next year, and why.

34% of our survey respondents planned to spend more online. When we asked what were the major factors influencing their online spending projections, 26% said personal finances, 16% said gas prices, 16% said online prices (probably better than offline prices), 14% said economic outlook. So gas prices were not the major influencer in projected online spend, but they were up there.

However, the data supports the idea that the weakening economy will benefit e-business in general, since nearly 34% plan to spend more online this year, and only 16% plan to spend more offline. Only 13% of respondents plan to spend less this year online, while 26% plan to spend less offline. Overall, this probably means the online channel holds considerably greater opportunity to capture sales in a tight economy.

Marrying Online Customer Satisfaction Surveys and Interactive Promotions

Jeff Blackman is the CFO at ForeSee Results, and will be a guest blogger at FreedYourMind. This is his first post.

Hi everyone.  My name is Jeff Blackman, and I am honored to be a guest blogger on freedyourmind.com. I’m the new CFO at ForeSee, and this is my first blog entry, so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t use proper “blog” etiquette – if there is such a thing!  Having been associated with both ForeSee Results and with ePrize (the market leaders in online customer satisfaction and interactive promotions respectively), it strikes me that a natural synergistic relationship exists between these services.  While measuring online customer sat and engaging in online promotions are both powerful in and of themselves, the combination is truly 1+1=3.  After all – one of the primary intents of an interactive promotion is to engage your customers to increase awareness and perception of your brand.  How best to determine if the promotion is achieving these goals than through measuring a visitor’s experience via a customer sat survey that is scientific enough to be able to predict customer behavior?

For example, you may know that 200,000 consumers registered for your promotion and your goal may have been 300,000.  On the surface this appears to be disappointing – right?  Not necessarily – the real question is: Did the consumer‘s perception of your brand increase and thus are they more likely to engage with your brand in the future?  A pre and post customer sat measure would give you the answer.  The fact of the matter is that if your brand’s perception / satisfaction increased significantly with a high percentage of the 200,000 registrants the promotion was probably a winner. And you should go beyond satisfaction… the ACSI methodology that ForeSee Results uses can actually tell you if people who registered for the promotion are more or less likely to buy, be loyal, recommend you, etc.

As we all know, the goal is not just the number of registrants but the intersection between the number of qualified registrants and the (hopefully) positive impact to customer sat that you generate.  As has been proven time and time again, there is a strong link between consumer satisfaction and financial results.

Furthermore, a customer satisfaction survey coupled with an interactive promotion will allow you to gain deeper insight into your customer’s mindset.  In the attempt to keep registration pages as lean as possible to increase participation, many critical data points are understandably not collected.   Besides the core questions that are part of the model, customized survey questions can help answer questions such as where the consumer was driven from (a key stat as we all know that it is imperative to “promote” your promotion properly).  In addition you may want to know if the customers were driven by an attraction to the brand (higher quality leads) or by the incentive itself which may have attracted gamers to your site, who will puff up your number of participants but may not be likely to buy or recommend.  This information will allow you to customize your next interactive promotion – in terms of look, feel and prize, in order to drive even more participation and higher quality leads.  It is these higher quality leads which will drive your ROI (and likely allow you to lobby for an increase in your marketing budget).  While we have seen clients take advantage of the synergistic effects of these two services – all indications show that this trend will continue to increase significantly over the next year as brand managers are being asked to prove that their interactive promotions are achieving the goal of increasing awareness and perception of their brand. 

New Content, New Design, New Network, New Authors

Big changes afoot here at FreedYourMind. You've probably noticed the new design and the new picture over there in the sidebar so that in case someone ever tries to impersonate me at a conference keynote, you will know! (I don't usually run around in a tuxedo, I promise. That was taken at our company's Christmas party last year, which was James Bond-themed.)

Secondly, we've also been asked to join the Forbes.com network of business blogs, a big honor and an exciting development for us. They'll be running our content on their website, and we'll be running a few ads for them in exchange.

Finally, I've invited a few colleagues to start making guest posts on topics that are on their minds. We have a lot of bright people here who are out in the trenches every day working with all kinds of issues pertaining to e-business and e-commerce. But the title will still be FreedYourMind and not BlackmanYourMind or ToeplitzYourMind or KhanYourMind. So there!