The cliff is what customers are staring at when they are on your web site, motivated to buy, ready to buy, but you don't give them any kind of "buy now" or "next step" button or link. Here's an example of exactly what I'm talking about.
Today I was updating my books using Quickbooks. After receiving several error messages of this general nature(click thumbnail), and checking and re checking my bank web site, I finally did a search online for this error:
Many thanks to the Simsbury Bank in Connecticut for helping me out, as their notice was the first thing on Google that made any sense of my error. After some rooting around at Intuit, I got this notice:
After April 30, 2004, if you attempt to use QuickBooks 2001 Online Banking you will first receive an error message that will instruct you to contact technical support. This will be followed by a message advising you that your financial institution information cannot be obtained. In order to connect to a financial institution again, you will need to upgrade to a supported version of QuickBooks.
Actually, they've been sending me stuff in the mail encouraging me to upgrade, but they never mentioned that they were planning to stop supporting key functionality in my version. Their sunset policy recommends that I visit their website regularly to check for notices of this type.
When a QuickBooks product is scheduled to be sunset, Intuit will provide affected customers with advance notice, generally by means of this Web site. We update this Web site periodically, so please visit us again for more information as it becomes available.
You've got to be kidding me... why did I give you my e-mail address?
Okay, forgetting that for the moment, why on earth did they not have a link to the word "upgrade" that takes me to the upgrade pages? Maybe even offer me a tiny sweetener to ease the pain. Or a recommendation of which software would be most suitable for me? I refer to this situation on line as "the cliff" -- I'm ready to buy, motivated to buy, but there's no next step. I have to figure out the next step myself.
Grrr. Here I am assuming I am going to have to pay full price again if I want to download my bank statements. Taking one last shot at it, I searched the term "upgrade" on their site, which took me to testimonials. I wasn't really in the mood to read any testimonials, but curiosity won out and finally, I see an "upgrade" link!
Okay, I'm happy again. (well so far, I haven't had the fun of loading the upgrade yet -- stay tuned.) You could do more business by telling me that I could save up to $150 on the upgrade in the same place as you explained the sunset policy.
The cliff -- when your site visitors are standing in front of it, you are missing opportunities, as well as annoying people.
Postscript Jan 31, 2005 4:40 pm
Since downloading the upgrade, I've had a few problems. Mostly with Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1, without which the new download won't install. (You know the deal, starting with the Microsoft knowledge base. We've all felt the pain.)
Okay, we're not going there, because --- I BOUGHT THE WRONG SOFTWARE! I only discovered this when I called the Quickbooks support number, and was redirected to the Canadian company. Hours later, I think I have a commitment for a refund from the US company. (Who cares about the details, basically I've flushed a perfectly good day and part of an evening on this -- I'm only laughing on the outside.)
But I have a few tips for the Canadian guy in Tech support that I spoke to:
- Making your customers feel like idiots is not good for the brand
- Suggesting that Canadians "should never buy anything from a dot-com site" might be a little over-cautious for most of us
- It is not the customer's problem that you are two separate companies with the same name and the same product names and nothing on either web site to tell us that. Grown ups should be able to work these things out with links, otherwise what hope is there for world peace?
- When you have an opportunity to upsell to a buyer that's on the line, you should take that opportunity now, not hope they will call back after the other company refunds their money.
- Suggesting that Microsoft .Net is some obscure platform you've never heard of may make people wonder how good your tech support really is if that is the depth of your knowledge.
You know what's really funny? When I was still trying to fix the .Net install problem, Steve from Microsoft told me he was really glad I had DSL because his previous call took 3 hours. I'm sure it was the most fun that customer has had in days.
