Why do they leave your site?

Why don’t they buy?

Why do they abandon a shopping cart after going to the trouble to shop on your site, select items and add them to a cart in the desired size and color?

This might give you an idea or two…

photo credit: Anonymous Account

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that there were some “numbers you might care about“.

Examples we talked about included figuring out the costs to obtain both a new prospect/lead and a new customer.

In prior discussions, I’ve also suggested that you need to be thanking your customers, following up with them, tracking referrals that customers (and others) make, checking to see that more time than usual hasn’t passed since their last purchase, and so on.

And then…I get emails.

Many of them tell me I’m nuts because no one has time to do all that and that I must be making it up. Others get it and they ask HOW to get all that stuff done.

GETTING STUFF DONE

Here’s part one of a primer on getting this stuff done.

What I mean by “primer” is that it’s simple and you don’t have to buy anything fancy or expensive, nor do you need to do anything geeky. You *can*, of course, but it’s not a requirement.

Start with these tools:

• A free calendar (banks, insurance agents and others hand them out all the time). A large one-month-per-page desk calendar will help if you feel the need to splurge.
• a free pen/pencil (ditto)
• a $0.99 yellow pad

We’ll keep it simple for now and create a process for each of these events:

• A new prospect contacts you
• A new customer buys for the first time.
• An existing customer buys again.
• Someone calls to make an appointment.
• You communicate with a prospect or customer.

DIRTY WORK

Now it’s time for the real work.

Use the yellow pad for these tasks:

• When a prospect contacts you, write their name on one of the yellow pad sheets. Write the date they first contacted you at the top of the sheet. Below or next to that, write “Last contact date” and keep it updated (yes, it’ll get a little messy, but this is a paper system). Ask them who to thank for sending them to you. Write down the answer as “Source”. It might be a person, an ad or something else.
• Keep a separate sheet for each prospect. Keep the sheets sorted by last name, unless you have a different way that works better for you.
• When a prospect becomes a customer by buying something, write a C in one of the upper corners of the page so you know they’re a customer. In addition, write the first date of purchase at the top of the page. Write “Last purchase date” next to or below it. Keep it updated each time they purchase. Use a calendar on the internet to figure how out many days since they last bought. Write that down too.
• When contacting (or contacted by) a customer or prospect, write a summary of each contact on their sheet. Indicate briefly their satisfaction level.

Use the calendar to remind you to perform these tasks:

• Record appointments. Make note of them on the prospect/customer sheet so you can follow up as well as thank them.
• Follow up with a note a few days (if that’s the right timing) after a new customer buys for the first time. Write the follow up on the appropriate date as soon as they buy.
• Follow up with a customer after an on-site delivery or service to make sure all is well. If a staff member or contractor is doing the work, use the follow up to make sure that they were on-time, clean, courteous and took care of the customer’s needs.

Do these every day:

• Check the calendar for follow ups, appointments, thank yous and such. Make them that day. Don’t get behind or you’ll never do them.
• Check the contact sheets to make sure that customers are being properly taken care of. Your “satisfaction level” comments should feed this process.
• Check the contact sheets for customers who haven’t bought in at least a month (or whatever time frame makes sense). Follow up to see why they haven’t been back  and include that on the sheet. If a particular competitor is involved, make note of that.

BOOOOOOORINNNNNNG!

Yes, this is mundane stuff.

It’s also exactly the same stuff that *so many businesses* fail at day-in and day-out. If you can’t get the basics right, you need to fix them.

Disclaimer: The computer guy half of my head insists that I remind you that manual processes and yellow pads don’t scale well (and eventually not at all), meaning that what works for 20 or 100 customers doesn’t work worth a darn for 500, 1000 or 10000.

Because paper doesn’t scale, I know what happens next. You get busy and eventually, you just won’t do the work. This happens despite the realization that doing all that stuff is at least part of the reason you got so busy.

If you do realize there’s a connection there, then you’ll either decide to introduce some technology or you’ll get some help. This kind of work is ideal for a stay-at-home parent, retiree or similar.

Crude? Perhaps. Understanding the value of these tasks – and of a tool that automates much this labor – is easier after doing it the hard way. This effort is just as valid for a four-star restaurant as for an oil change shop.

Today’s guest post is from Jill Whelan of HighRankings.com.

Jill describes a nice parallel between the preparation necessary for taking the kids on a long road trip (vs having them cry) and the symptoms your website uses to tell you what a crying child is trying to tell you.

It’s a good read, go check it out. Your website will thank you.

Today’s guest post from the UK offers more insight on why prices with .99 work in the US and UK and why .88 works in Asia.

There are long-standing rules of thumb that advise how to set prices, but the wise business owner knows to test everything, including pricing.

The only results that count are the ones you see from your clientele.

photo credit: Looking Glass

If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you’ll have read a few posts about the value of measurement.

Measuring marketing response is the primary thing you’ll find, but as a CFO friend of mine says, “That which is measured will be managed”.

Seth starts off talking about the green marketing but ends up making a very good point about why those things we measure are better-managed.

Bottom line: They’ve got a number.

Got something that’s important to your business? Keep score. It matters.

Over the last few weeks as I (im)patiently waited for Woopra approval for this site’s URL, I said a few grumbly words in the middle of the “Why is it taking 3 weeks to get approved?” kinds of sentences.

Finally, I got notice of approval last night.

With that, I have to say: Mom, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it.
It took a few hours to get some results worth viewing in Woopra, but when they came in – holy moly.

It takes a moment to get used to the serious eye candy in the interface (which isn’t a supermodel, but for a screen, it’s pretty nice), but then you find some pretty cool stuff  – including customizable visitor behavior alerts.

More on this in a future post, but I just had to say – this thing is pretty cool. If you study your site’s visitor behavior (and you should), it’s worth taking a look at.