Chances are you’ve visited your share of Web sites that were so exasperating that you couldn’t leave fast enough. I know I have. It makes you realize that to be successful online, it’s important to put yourself in your customers’ shoes.
Columnist Jeff Wuorio makes some great points on how to do that in his article on improving customer service on e-commerce sites. Even if you’re not specifically focused on e-commerce, you’ll pick up some useful tips on improving the overall visitor experience on any type of Web site.
One tip that I thought was particularly useful if you’re just getting started is to have friends or family who haven’t been on your site yet give it a test drive. One online entrepreneur Jeff talked to suggested giving them an assignment and then watching how they do … without any coaching. That way you may find you’ve done a terrific job --- or a horrible job --- of setting up an intuitive customer experience. You may realize you indeed have some work to do. Either way, it’s valuable feedback.
Another way to solicit feedback is to put your site up for “review” in the Customer Gallery that’s part of our Office Live Small Business Community forums. Do it now. You can get a range of viewpoints from a great bunch of people.
Monte Enbysk