Stop Making it So Difficult to Do Business with You

Having grown up watching reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation, my husband and I were excited to see a new Star Trek TV series out this fall. After watching the debut on CBS, we learned they were going to host the remaining episodes on their streaming service, CBS All Access.

Ready to settle in after our 1-year-old went to bed, we went onto our Amazon Fire streaming device to sign up for CBS All Access. We had to pay for the service.

I think you know where I’m going with this. Instead of integrating with the Amazon account we were already signed up for, it made us enter ALL of our data – name, address, credit card info and even gender – using the tiny Amazon Fire remote, picking out letters and numbers one by one, a tedious process, to sign up.

Many of the questions they were asking were marketing-driven, and not required to complete the transaction. The process was certainly not customer-driven, and if we didn’t want to watch the series badly enough, we would have given up early on.

We almost did. The nerd in us won out.

But I wonder how many people give up on signing up for that service due to the signup process alone. Plenty of apps integrate with Facebook or Amazon so that you don’t have to re-enter anything.

These days, being easy to do business with should be your No. 1 priority whether you’re a streaming service or any other type of business, from your initial touchpoint with a prospect to long after they sign on. Amazon made that a must-have, and those heightened customer expectations seeped into the B2B realm long ago.

I guarantee it: If you’re not making it seamless to interact with your company, you are leaking customers and missing out on prospects. Here are just a few areas you can examine:

Offering downloads in exchange for leads on your site. I know you want as much information as possible on your leads, but if a whitepaper is your first touch with them, consider asking for just an email address. The more data you ask for, the fewer the leads. This is well-documented. Add fields to your database as you build trust with your prospect list.

How long does it take to complete a purchase? Test buying a product on your site. How long does it take you? If you put yourself in your customer’s shoes, would you give up and call them or just give up altogether and go somewhere else? Be honest.

Does your website integrate with your other systems? Or do your customers have to input data online that you already have? Minimize the amount of time your customers have to spend on your website giving you information you should already have in your system.

If you really want to identify areas where you can improve your interaction with customers, ask your customers. They will be thrilled you asked, and will be more than willing to share what frustrates them most.

When you’re designing a process (or revisiting an old one) think customer first. Think about what’s best for them, and you’re guaranteed to draw more prospects, convert them and hold onto them longer.

Download our recent 5-Step Website Audit for 5 fast and easy steps you can take to improve your website.