The Web Through the Eyes of Your Clients (or Employees)

The Internet makes it possible to reach levels previously unattainable in terms of customer service, communications and customer self-service. All these elements improve the depth, simplicity and quality of your relationship with your clients, which ultimately contributes to boosting their satisfaction and loyalty to your company. The same goes for your employees. By distributing and delivering online services, you will secure precision and standardization of published information, quality services and a high level of satisfaction among clients using those services. Clearly, this shows that using the Internet to communicate more efficiently is just as advantageous for your clients (both external or internal, such as employees from other departments), as it is for the company itself.

Your Web site, intranet or extranet gives you access to this type of added value, often at a much lower cost than other channels such as telephone or walk-in service centres. But what criteria should you use as a basis for selecting which services, information and interactive functions to put online? How can you verify whether the system you have implemented operates as planned and if it is properly integrated with the other channels your company uses? Do users succeed in accomplishing the tasks foreseen by the system (i.e. consulting your catalogue, requesting support, purchasing products, ordering online, etc.)?

Listen and observe

A trusty old way to proceed is to listen to the people most concerned: those who actually use the system. If they find the system valuable, you can be sure that they will use it and, in turn, you will reap the benefits of having installed it, savouring savings in operating expenses, increased revenue from online sales, etc.

Your eyes and ears

What tools and methods can you use to fully understand the needs, expectations and satisfaction of your system’s users? Here is a helpful guide to introduce you to the elements that will enable you to systematically survey users’ reactions and thereby make your business efforts and e-services more successful: online polls , feedback tools , and performance evaluation tools . Ask your consultant to help you put these elements in place and to assist you in analyzing the resulting data.

Online polls

Electronic polls are simple, efficient and generate much data about current and potential users of your online tools. E-polls consist in sending a survey to all or a portion of your users, asking them to rate the quality of existing services and to make suggestions or comment on the value of tools that you plan on developing. The questionnaire should make responding as easy as possible for the participants and therefore should be composed of multiple-choice questions or questions on a numeric scale. This will also facilitate the work of compiling and analyzing the data. However, be sure to provide space for participants who wish to enter long answers, allowing you to obtain any new information from your users. In certain situations, it may be advisable to ensure that each user can complete only a single poll; this will prevent respondents from slanting the results in favour of certain projects or tools that would be profitable to their group only.

Feedback tools: blogs and forums

These tools, which are simple to implement and easy to adapt to the context, generate much feedback from your users. They are especially useful when you want to explore new concepts because, unlike e-polls, they gather data that is strictly qualitative. Moreover, since the comments posted are visible to all, they allow users to react not only to the initial question, but also to responses posted by other participants, giving you access to a vast quantity of information. For more information on this topic, consult the article written this month by my colleague Guillaume Brunet.

Evaluate your performance: metrics, usability tests and secret shoppers

Once your tools are in place, it is a good idea to verify whether your visitors are using the information and tools you have provided and whether they find these services user-friendly and convenient.

Your Web site statistics give you a quick way to evaluate which of your information and tools are truly being used. Pages viewed, time per page and click-stream are the basic metrics to keep your eye on (see a previous article on this topic written by my colleague Guillaume Brunet).

Usability tests are designed to test any tools you currently use, as well as page prototypes, in order to preemptively fine-tune your online services. The tests consist in selecting a small sample of representative users (3 to 10 depending on the situation), then asking them to either accomplish certain tasks on your site or to use your online tools. The result is an audio and video recording (screen capture and mouse clicks saved) that will help you to identify and correct any difficulties they encountered while they performed (successfully or not) the required tasks. You will also receive a report of concrete recommendations that are easy to implement.

Lastly, online secret shoppers – just like the ones working in store branches – can verify whether it is agreeable to be a customer on your company’s Web site. They will also test auxiliary tools on your site (e.g. online support, help tools, etc.) to reveal which practices may be dissuading your potential customers or chasing away existing ones. Furthermore, secret shoppers will identify points of frustration on your site that may be affecting your employees and they will uncover any other deficiencies that could have an impact on your e-business investments.

Implementing such practices can make the difference between either investing your money well or creating a money pit for your organization.