Does Your Website Drive Visitors Away?

My fiancee, Eric, claims he’s going through a mid-life crisis.  He’s turning 40 later this year and starting to feel old.  Fortunately, for me, however, his mid-life crisis is not taking the form of buying a red sports car and cruising through town with a 20-year babe on his arm…:)  He’s got bicycle fever.  Yep, you heard me right.  Apparently, according to what he tells me, he was a hellion bicycler back in the day, terrorizing Austin and the University of Texas alike.

We’ve spent the last few weeks shopping for bikes and went into 2 different stores locally.  One store in particular struck me as VERY customer unfriendly.  As we walked in the door, we were met by a sign that stated , "If you pay by check, we will fingerprint you."  Ouch!  That made me want to turn around and leave right then.

Once inside the store, we began looking at the bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles on display.  However, many were covered with signs warning customers not to sit, stand on, or otherwise touch or harm the merchandise in any way.  How the heck are you supposed to buy a bicycle if you can’t try it out?

A very friendly and knowledgeable young woman waited on us, but the bicycle she recommended wasn’t in stock and would have to be ordered.  Fit and comfort are very important when you’re trying to find just the right bicycle.  Who wants to order a bike that you haven’t been able to test first?

As she was showing Eric the bicycles in her catalog, I noticed yet another sign near the register about bicycle repairs.  It noted that repairs would take from 2-4 weeks to complete because they were behind.  Well, if you’re so far behind, shouldn’t you be hiring some help?

As we left the store without buying anything, Eric had a card with the number to call the owner later in the day with additional questions, as the owner wasn’t in when we were there.  I asked him what he thought about the shop, and he replied that he’d like to get some more info and that the prices they offered beat the other bike shop in the area.

I told him what I’d observed in the store and how I felt like I wasn’t wanted from the moment we walked in.  Eric missed all of those clues (he’s such a guy!) and I told him that I thought he’d get better all around service from the prior shop we’d visited a few weeks ago.

On Monday he returned to the first shop we’d visited, got lots of personalized service from the owner, tried out lots of bikes (all of which were in stock), and bought a new bicycle, helmet, and air pump.  Today we got a followup call from the owner wanting to know how he liked his new bicycle.

Now, that’s what I’m talking about — exceptional customer service!

Just like the bad bike shop in my story, many online business owners have websites that drive customers away for one reason or another — there’s no clear call to action, all the content is about the owner instead of the customer, the site is poorly designed and hard to read…. You get the idea.

Find a few volunteers who don’t know you well and have them test drive your site.  You may be surprised with what you discover..:)