All posts in User Experience
Fresh ALERT: New Etsy Feature Will Let Users Find You by Email by Default
This post could be titled “The Almost Perfect Way to Make a Security Change on a Social Site”
This morning I got the following email from Etsy. We sell some templates there so this is in reference to a new site feature that will go live in the next few weeks:
Fresh ALERT: Facebook Privacy Setting Enabled
On January 28, 2011
In Customer Experience, Facebook, Life Online, User Experience
With 1 Comment
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I was alerted this morning by Facebook friends that there is a new setting automatically enabled, that you may well not want enabled. I have some screen shots here of how to go and disable it or at least learn what the setting means so you can decide for yourself whether you want to play in these advertiser games or not.
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The Ultimate Restaurant Site – What’s Missing Today
On August 13, 2010
In Brand Experience, Customer Experience, Restaurants & Hospitality, User Experience
With 2 Comments
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I have a lot of problems with the vast majority – and by that I mean 98% of all restaurant sites today. They are not set up to help the users who are there for a specific purpose or to fully engage prospects who’ve never been there before, and there’s really no excuse for not making these sites better.
A few weeks ago I did a radio interview with Jeffrey Summers of Hospitality 101 on this topic, which you can listen to while reading this if you like – it will open in a new window: Blog Talk Radio: Building a Better Restaurant Business 7/27
I had an experience, just that day on the way to a lunch meeting that has to be a common occurrence for others, I’d imagine. On the way to Gordon Biersch, running slightly late, I needed to look up my meal in advance so Lisa could order for me, so I looked up the restaurant on my smartphone. They did not have a mobile version, so I navigated best I could, but had to put in a zip code or find my state to try to get to the menu. (A better way? Do a mobile app that picks up the smartphone’s geo-location and shoot them to the right menu/map/location information instantly.) I finally got the menu for lunch pulled up, and it was a PDF of course – restaurants seem never to have heard of HTML when it comes to menu’s online) and some of the PDF was dark and colored so it was very difficult to find what I needed to look at. I finally gave up, and since the one white page of the PDF had salads and appetizers on it, decided to pick a salad to eat. Sigh… oh well.
This is SO typical. Type in any major city into Google: “restaurants Chicago” for example, and go to the first sites that come up. Ask yourself this:
A few weeks ago I did a radio interview with Jeffrey Summers of Hospitality 101 on this topic, which you can listen to while reading this if you like – it will open in a new window: Blog Talk Radio: Building a Better Restaurant Business 7/27
I had an experience, just that day on the way to a lunch meeting that has to be a common occurrence for others, I’d imagine. On the way to Gordon Biersch, running slightly late, I needed to look up my meal in advance so Lisa could order for me, so I looked up the restaurant on my smartphone. They did not have a mobile version, so I navigated best I could, but had to put in a zip code or find my state to try to get to the menu. (A better way? Do a mobile app that picks up the smartphone’s geo-location and shoot them to the right menu/map/location information instantly.) I finally got the menu for lunch pulled up, and it was a PDF of course – restaurants seem never to have heard of HTML when it comes to menu’s online) and some of the PDF was dark and colored so it was very difficult to find what I needed to look at. I finally gave up, and since the one white page of the PDF had salads and appetizers on it, decided to pick a salad to eat. Sigh… oh well.
This is SO typical. Type in any major city into Google: “restaurants Chicago” for example, and go to the first sites that come up. Ask yourself this:
- Do they have their menu chunked into sections so you have to click back and forth to see what having a whole meal there would be like?
- Do they only offer their menu as PDF’s you have to download to view?
- Do they have pertinent information about how to reserve for big parties, catering info, delivery info, business meeting capabilities, and things beyond the typical that you might be seeking information about?
- Do they offer convenient links to Driving Directions so you can pull that up without having to do the work yourself to get them?
- Do they link to reviews for you so you can get a sense of the restaurant’s quality from unbiased sources?
- Do they solicit your feedback, either personally via email or social network invitation, or through poll questions or short surveys? Do they make it easy for you to ask questions?
- Do they have large, detailed photographs, video of the space and imagery that immerses you in the experience of what the restaurant would be like if you visited?
- A mobile site that is particularly geared towards the needs of mobile users and anticipates their actions to make the experience both efficient and pleasant.
- Real-time content, currently spread around the internet at sites like Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Foodspotting and many more, being aggregated into your site.
- User experience on-the-cheap, because people are willing (and sometimes you can’t stop them) from sharing their experiences online. Polls, quick surveys, soliciting feedback on social networks, making it easy for people to give anonymous feedback… this is something every hospitality business should be using the internet for today. Listening, talking, and seeking information about what you’re doing right, what’s wrong and how you can improve.
- Real relationships – beyond simply interacting. Jeffery has long been a proponent of serving customers a bit more like they do in Europe, which is to get involved in their lives. Some of my favorite places where I do business get to know me personally over time, as I am a regular customer, and go the extra mile to help me get done what I need to: become more polished at the nail salon, cut off my nappy hair and make me look more presentable, clean my clothes so I can make a good impression at a meeting, or nourish me with some delicious food that I may be craving.
- Contact Jeffrey Summers at RestaurantWorx about a restaurant consultation
- Add the RestaurantWorx blog to your reader or subscribe by email
- Contact us at Fresh ID about your restaurant site
- Listen to Hospitality 101 radio shows – they are chock FULL of helpful tips!
New Packaging for Campbell's Soup Impacts User Experience & Hopefully Sales
I am fascinated by Neuromarketing, because I like psychology, I like user experience and human factors research, and I like selling stuff and making money. A lot of people have a bad impression of neuromarketing because they worry about Evil Marketers tapping into our brains to get information about how to influence us… and that may be an aspect for some companies that spend money on this research. But trying to understand what customers want and need and how to appeal to their sense of style, tastes or desires is also what we do in user experience testing, so I look at it more positively than negatively.
This week I saw a great example of neuromarketing and wanted to share it with you. I think this is just so neat, that the Campbell’s company put the time and effort in, but I like this example most for the enhanced user experience. Check out this new label…
The Wall Street Journal says that the research was conducted over a two year period, to figure out how to get consumers to buy more soup. From the PSFK blog:
If you want to learn more about neuromarketing (as a layman), my two favorite resources are Roger Dooley’s blog and the book Buyology. Roger Dooley is a fantastic guy to talk to – I’m lucky to have him as a friend on Twitter, and his blog is so educational and interesting. What I love about his posts is that he uses lots of examples and then explains why and how the example is effective or not, all without overloading you with information or too-complex details for those of us not immersed in this field of study everyday. I read everything he ever writes and highly recommend it: Neuromarketing, Where Brain Science and Marketing Meet. Read Roger’s take on the new packaging in Your Brain on Soup.
Buyology, by Martin Lindstrom, is a book, a site, and an experience. You can view chapter summary information, buy it at numerous places, or read many news articles about the book and Lindstrom’s take on what makes people buy something. Visit the site – there is a lot of information to explore!
The Wall Street Journal says that the research was conducted over a two year period, to figure out how to get consumers to buy more soup. From the PSFK blog:
For the past two years, researchers studied microscopic changes in skin moisture, heart rate and other biometrics to see how consumers react to everything from pictures of bowls of soup to logo design. They combined these biometric tools with a different type of deep interview to more accurately gauge which consumer communications worked better.These labels are not just pretty to look at – they will actually make locating the right soup for your needs much easier… right now the logo on red really does draw your eye to it much more than is helpful – it’s distracting compared the often lighter-colored soups. Color-coding the cans will also be helpful – so though this was done to make soup a more appealing purchase decision, it also makes buying it quickly easier, so the user experience has been improved also. I can’t wait till these cans hit the shelves.
If you want to learn more about neuromarketing (as a layman), my two favorite resources are Roger Dooley’s blog and the book Buyology. Roger Dooley is a fantastic guy to talk to – I’m lucky to have him as a friend on Twitter, and his blog is so educational and interesting. What I love about his posts is that he uses lots of examples and then explains why and how the example is effective or not, all without overloading you with information or too-complex details for those of us not immersed in this field of study everyday. I read everything he ever writes and highly recommend it: Neuromarketing, Where Brain Science and Marketing Meet. Read Roger’s take on the new packaging in Your Brain on Soup.
Buyology, by Martin Lindstrom, is a book, a site, and an experience. You can view chapter summary information, buy it at numerous places, or read many news articles about the book and Lindstrom’s take on what makes people buy something. Visit the site – there is a lot of information to explore!
Information vs. Engagement: Are You Giving People What They Need?
On January 23, 2010
In Customer Experience, Life Online, Process, User Experience
With 8 Comments
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I don’t expect this to be an overly popular post – I have brought this conversation up several times – I even moderated the #sm42 chat about it, and it almost always results in a backlash of folks that claim all social media communication is about engagement, and I am wrong to think otherwise. But still… I think otherwise. I just can’t let go of the notion we can make social media work even more efficiently and effectively for all concerned.
I’m not against engagement and talking to people. Obviously I talk to lots of people who talk to me on Twitter, and do my best to engage both new people I don’t know and people I consider friends. As well as prospects, clients and various companies and brands. I am a user advocate, after all, so I get it. Using Twitter, Facebook and various other social platforms to develop mutually beneficial or even just interesting relationships with others is not new. Using these platforms to solicit web traffic, sell a book, product or service or promote yourself as a celebrity or expert of some type is really becoming yesterday’s news, as well. People are jumping onto these platforms by droves to take advantage of the marketing opportunities, and to provide a listening ear or customer support also. There is definitely marketing value, in listening to people and acknowledging what they have to say about your company… it takes finesse sometimes, which savvy social media marketers and community managers have (or anyone tweeting for your company) in order to read the needs and then meet them, for the particular individual you’re dealing with.
But I know there’s more we can do, with all the people, and the easy, instant access, and the short-burst communication and the open api’s and ability to integrate technology online, where it can be accessed from anywhere there’s a computer and internet connection. So much more. Some enterprising local companies are taking orders over Twitter and having food or drink ready for the person when they arrive. Delivery companies are finding ways to use Twitter. Cabs can be ordered and dispatched. Shipments can be tracked. I even had an interaction with a great company called Gourmet Library and they changed their site for me that night, to add a suggested feature. Now THIS, this is a beautiful way to use these unexpected (a few years ago) resources in ways that can benefit our bottom lines and improve our business processes.
Still… people go on and on about engagement and almost can’t stand to have a conversation including social media that doesn’t put the total emphasis on that singular concept. I understand why – lots of companies and business people are on Twitter, but they don’t all do it like we wish they would. Some of them are stiff, not overly chatty or friendly. Some are defensive. Some of them have an account name and don’t even tweet or acknowledge things being said about them at all. Some users/customers/prospects DO choose another company based on the lack of interaction, by the way. Some send out automated, crappy sales solicitations and annoy you. Some just listen – you know they are – using all the real-time streaming as intelligence but they don’t deign to respond. Some intervene too much – maybe you want to vent about your hideous tasting sandwich from a fast food chain, but don’t want to be confronted about it in public. So all the advice and the opinions and feedback about how to develop these relationships online is definitely warranted.
But is “engagement” the ONLY need that people have? I’ve been thinking about this a long, long time. I believe people/users/customers/buyers/employees have needs, and engaging with a company representative in order to meet the need is only one facet of a holistic plan to be implemented.
For you, in your life, what’s the fastest way to go about getting a particular piece of company information? Say you want to know the hours and location of a company you plan to do business with later today. Do you…
- Ask a friend/spouse/coworker if they know?
- Look them up in a paper phonebook?
- Look them up in Google or online?
- Go to their site and hunt until you find the information on the site?
- Call phone information and ask for their phone number so you can talk to someone on the phone?
- Drive by the location to look at a sign on the door?
- Search for them on Twitter or Facebook, to see if the company is there and you can ask or see the info?
- Send an email to them to find out?
- Ask an intern/spouse/assistant or some other person to find out?
Emarketer’s latest research offers reasons that people befriend or follow a company using social media. They say social media users are “interested in deeper engagement.” That seems to be somewhat true, but have we helped respondents identify what it is they TRULY need? Two of these categories are too vague (at least as represented in this simple chart.) Do they need a person from Whole Foods, Macy’s or Apple to address them? Or do they need a question answered, a complaint addressed, a suggestion for a feature or product acknowledged, some praise for an employee noted, a request considered, or some other, specific need answered, that may or may not involve “engaging?”
What requires unique answers vs. what could be answered in a FAQ or inventory call? Inquiring about known product availability is different than asking if the company even has a product that meets a particular need, or a service offering. Asking for hours of operation is different than engaging in a conversation about the best person to contact within the company to discuss a potential business deal, or an inquiry about a unique problem with a newly purchased product. Asking a Human Resources representative on Twitter about the most appropriate clothing choices for a new hire, is different than asking if there are job openings. One requires human engagement, the other can be answered by a machine. We don’t refuse to automate business processes inside the enterprise, or factory, or kitchen… wherever they make sense and are affordable. So why do we act as if some automation of information via a social platform is a crime against humanity?
As a user experience designer, I have seen that interactions inside a site or software system (or over a phone system) are also forms of engaging with your company and brand. The increasing popularity of making purchases online is a testament to this. You need to think of interactions and transactions as mechanical engaging, and you’ll see how important they are. People have good, bad and downright horrifying experiences, just like they do with your employees in person. An online experience with a site or ecommerce shopping cart can leave the same good or bad taste in your mouth, resulting in the same good or bad word of mouth sharing. If you have a crappy site, and are hoping your salespeople or customer support will make up for it (or vice versa), you won’t be fooling anyone, really. Customer care is a pervasive, underlying foundation or it’s not, and all aspects of your approach need to deliver on it. Social media is not a silo, your site is not a silo, your blog and community managers are not a silo, your managers, customer support handlers, marketing people, receptionists, retail floorwalkers, the lobby, restrooms and the parking lot are not independently going to carry the brand – it takes all of these pieces – human, tangible and intangible – working in tandem from the same value belief system, to satisfy prospects, buyers, partners and even former customers.
So instead of looking at the world of social media and thinking “Oh my gosh, how can I even go there? Our staff doesn’t have enough time as it is!” I am suggesting that you step back and ask yourself, what do people in your business ecosystem really NEED?
- What do prospects need?
- What do people appropriate for our products/services need, that don’t know about us yet?
- What do existing customers need?
- What do people with a return or complaint need?
- What do potential partners need?
- What do employees need?
- What do our salespeople need to close deals/do their job?
- What do company managers need?
- What do investors/stakeholders need?
- What do people we owe money to/do business with need?
- I would greatly prefer to order some of my food and beverages directly via Twitter and then go pick them up (like Coffeegroundz in Houston wisely initiated early on – I was longing for this just the other day from Moe’s in Shawnee, KS)
- I’d love to be able to sit on my rump in Twitter and ask an Amazon account about a book someone mentioned, and have the link to it sent back to me, instead of going to the site and searching
- If I have an Apple Mac issue (I have multiple Macs and an iPod), I want to be able to hit a knowledge base with my question from Twitter. It may work or may not, but it seems easier than going and digging up the info at their site. It’s just one more hook, but for me, mentally massively more convenient.
- Someday I want to ask for hairdresser (lawn care, dry cleaner, nail salon, doctor, air conditioner repair, etc. recommendations and receive a nice link back to a list of known folks reviewed near me (or the city I will be going to.) I don’t want a special, local Kansas City site – I want to ask the world at large, from where I hang out (my site, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
- I’d like to be able to tweet a preferred appointment time to my nail lady, doctor’s office, chiropractor, etc. and get an answer back – an automated return of “Yes, that time’s available, would you like to schedule” or “No, I’m sorry, it’s not” is no less valuable coming from a software system than it is a human being. Either way, I get the appointment – engagement and customer care happens with the practitioner I am going to see and the people who take my money at the door, in addition to the software system they set up to meet my needs.
- If my internet goes out, or the electricity, I want to tweet an account and get a status update back.
- I want to ping my gym and find out what classes are being taught at 5:30 pm (because I realize that’s when I can go.) Or I want to know when Thom or Martha are teaching, or some other schedule related question.
This chart just doesn’t address people who are seeking information vs. the need to engage, in any of these areas. The RSS feed comment is mildly confusing – I assume they mean these collectors aggregate feeds into a feed reader or something, or maybe mix them, but not sure. “Inactives” may not appear to be doing anything, but we can’t know that – after all, they signed up for some reason… maybe they are self-educating or scouring for deals or seeking specific information.
Why aren’t we building databases based on social queries? Is it because we are so focused on people, and people who need people (LOL!) that we are totally overlooking an entire segment of socialization? Once I asked @WholeFoods if they carried Nutella – someone answered and said no, it does not meet their ingredient quality list. That answer could be popped into a database for a future automated query, so the next time a Nutella addict wants to know it could be answered automatically. The supplements questions alone (if anything like the quantity we got in the store) could result in a big time-savings for the human staffers.
Similar questions as an example: take Cost Plus World Market – do they have a location near me, do they carry Fat Tire Beer (at my location, or nearest?) Does LifeTime Fitness have a tennis center at a gym in Kansas City? (No, automated answer.) Will they ever have one? (Requires human answer with explanation.) Can I tell someone who will listen/respond at LifeTime, how much I wish they would bring Tennis to a KC gym? (Human answer with link to ideas site or direct forward to tennis program director, preferably on Twitter, or Facebook, or wherever I have initiated this conversation.) Do they have any recommendations for tennis in the Kansas City area then, given they are not meeting my need as an existing customer? (This is where the company could go the extra mile in their answer/recommendation, resulting in customer loyalty, user retention or positive WOM benefits.)
I am not saying the people running branded accounts on Twitter aren’t doing a world of good for their companies, customers and brands. I have no idea why, but one day someone mentioned to me she had a big problem with a seatbelt in her Ford. Not knowing how I could help, but having a passing acquaintance with Scott Monty, Ford’s very socially present PR person, I forwarded her issue on to him. He got the right people involved apparently, and a few days later she told me Ford had contacted her and was resolving the problem. Now, while I was glad this was the case, I don’t know why her efforts to reach them on her own had failed. These are the kinds of customer care issues all companies have to examine and correct where they see failures. If there were only automated systems, this would not have been possible, and I am not recommending we replace the people spearheading social media efforts at the groundbreaking companies that are here now, with automated systems. In fact, to know how to deal with people who request things and ask questions of you on Twitter, you need to BE an active Twitter user, so don’t even think about planning automated services without being immersed in the social culture, or you will likely pay for it in negativity.
I’m suggesting we (my company and others who think about technology and integration and business processes non-stop) help these Twittering employees and companies by coming up with new solutions. New ways of approaching the needs. New ways to scale and manage the requests. I hope that’s clear, if you read this far!
I leave you with two things. Tonight I asked the question “If you have recently interacted with a brand/company on Twitter, what was the nature of your interaction? Question/comment/issue?” and I got a lot of neat answers and opinions, which I have starred as favorites. I recommend browsing these comments for insights.
New friend @CariEllison gave me a link to a related article that’s interesting, so you might want to check it out also.
Want to discuss this? Tell me I’m full of smack? Need help with an integration plan or process? Let’s talk about it. I’m curious to know what other folks think of the idea of mixing automation (for utility, aid and response, not marketing – huge, huge difference) with people on social platforms.
