Tag Archives: web development new york

A Small Business Beginning of Year Website Checklist

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Even though this post was written years ago, it still holds true for today:

The time of year when we make resolutions has approached and I’m going to suggest that small business owners make one. Namely, it’s a suggestion that you resolve to fix up your website and pay attention to things you might’ve ignored for too long. I know you’re busy and time is at a premium, so chances are good that you’ve missed a few minor issues that are making your website look old and outdated.

Think about this way: Your car needs a tune-up every 15,000 miles or so to keep it running at its best. Your teeth need a checkup at least once or twice a year. I bet your doctor would also like to see you regularly, too. Well, a regular checkup will also keep your website running in peak condition.

With that in mind, here’s a small business website checkup that you should tackle at least once a year.

1. Review your company information

If you have a staff listing or directory, is it up-to-date with correct names, titles, and other contact information? If you have an “About Us” page or something similar that discusses company history, make sure it’s updated—especially references such as “We’ve been in business for eight years.”

2. Review your contact information

Are the phone and fax numbers, mailing and email addresses listed on your site all current? You’re obviously losing customers if the phone number has changed.

3. Review your email routing

If you list help@yourdomain.com as the main contact address on your site, is it being routed to the correct person? If your shopping cart sends order information to orders@yourdomain.com, is that going where it needs to go? Make sure your email routing reflects any organizational changes you’ve had.

4. Review and test your contact forms

If you have contact forms on your site, review them to make sure they work, they’re easy to use, and to see if they need to be updated. You might want to start asking people how they found your site or something else that your contact form doesn’t ask now. Also, be sure to “break” the form—submit it without the required information and see how understandable the resulting error message is.

5. Review your automated outgoing messages

Do you send an automated confirmation message or receipt after someone orders a product or uses your contact form? If so, review that outgoing automated message to make sure it says what you want it to say, and that it has the right contact information, etc.

6. Update your copyright / privacy policy

If you have a copyright notice on your site, make sure it’s not outdated. If you have a privacy policy, review it to make sure it accurately describes your current policy toward handling your customers’ personal information.

7. Test all outgoing links on your website

Outdated or broken links make your site look stale. It’s also a source of frustration for your customers who click on links that don’t work. Check all links on your site to make they’re accurate and up-to-date. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) offers an online link checker that makes this easy to do.

8. Review the hidden sections of your website

If you have any password-protected areas, do the passwords need to be changed? If you had staff changes during the year, this might be a good idea. It might be a good idea even if you didn’t!

9. Review your domain record

Make sure your domain registrar has current contact information for you. If they don’t, you might miss renewal notices and other important announcements about your domain. You might also want to read How to Protect Your Domain, which has some additional things to look for on your domain record.

10. Do an overall review of your website

This is something you should really be thinking about on a regular basis, but websites often get ignored in the daily grind of running a small business. Ask yourself: How fresh is the content on my site? Do any pages need to be updated? How does my site look? Is it time for a more professional or modern design? Does my site offer the kind of features or tools that let my customers get what they want when they visit?

Some of these suggestions will only take minutes to complete, while others will be more time-consuming. But no matter how busy you are, checking your website at least once a year is a resolution worth making … and keeping.

(original article written Dec 13, 2007 at 7:03am by Matt McGee)

How To Avoid Negative Reviews And Bad Publicity For Your Online Store

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It’s rare for my wife to hold a grudge against anyone or anything. So the conversation below took me completely by surprise the other day when she and I decided to do some Christmas shopping online together.

Me: Let’s go pick up everyone’s gifts at “The Big Convenient SuperStore” (Not the real name).

Wife: I will never shop at that store again.

Me: Huh? Why not? It’s so convenient and cheap. We can get all of our shopping done at one place.

Wife: I ordered there a few years ago and had a bad experience. Can’t remember the full story but I didn’t get my order on time.

Me: Is that all? Was it their fault?

Wife: No, they shipped it out the same day, but it got lost in the mail.

Me: So what’s the big deal? That’s not the store’s fault. It’s the shipping carrier’s fault. Did you get a refund?

Wife: Yes, but I don’t care. Still never shopping there again.

Me:**Rolling my eyes** Okay whatever.

Wife: What do you mean whatever!?! If you must know, the customer rep I spoke to was rude and condescending.

Me: Ahhh ok…I get it. But it’s a large company and you probably just got someone in a bad mood.

Wife: Doesn’t matter. They should train their employees better. Oh and don’t say “Whatever” to me ever again!

Me: Yes ma’am.

I learned quite a few things from this brief conversation with my wife. Lesson 1, never say “whatever” to your wife. Lesson 2, shopping is often more about the experience than the product or the price. My wife was so furious with this company that she vowed never to shop there again.

But if you look at the situation from an outside perspective, the store didn’t really do anything wrong. One, we received the package late but it wasn’t the store’s fault and two, we got a full refund. No harm was done and no money was lost. Yet this store managed to lose a customer for life just because of a bad phone conversation. Perhaps the customer rep used the word “whatever”. Who knows?

The Anatomy Of A Bad Review

Later that day, I happened to be reading through some Yelp reviews of restaurants in my area when I noticed some interesting patterns of behavior. While most of the reviews were thoughtful, written in a neutral tone and provided an unbiased review of the food, every now and then I’d come across an absolutely scathing review that had nothing to do with the food whatsoever. Here’s an example.

The food came quickly. But the servers (they switched between 2) were rather curt. I mean this one guy slammed the plates on our table and didn’t care ask who ordered what. And what shocked us the most was when my brother hadn’t even finished his appetizer, the waiter took away the plate right from under his nose… and never apologized even when we called him out. This was by far the most awful experience we’ve ever had. We’re never going back again and wouldn’t recommend you do either. This place deserves a zero but 1′s the lowest you could give out here.

Almost every 1 or 2 star Yelp review had similar characteristics. The customer was not upset at the food so much as the service which resulted in the restaurant getting slammed.

The Real Reason Customer Service Matters So Much

I’ve been doing customer service for quite some time now and the situations are almost always the same. When someone calls with a complaint about your business, the actual situation is often quite trivial. Blah Blah Blah…my order didn’t arrive on time. Blah Blah Blah…you accidentally sent me the wrong thing. Blah Blah Blah, the quality of your product is not good enough.

The strange thing is that as a customer, you rarely remember the financial hit that you took when placing the order. It’s all about the disrespect or the indignity that you faced when speaking with the customer service rep.

When a company representative angers you or treats you with a lack of respect, that tends to override everything else. For example, whoever spoke to my wife must have really said something bad for her to boycott an entire store because no harm was actually done. A simple “whatever” and a rolling of my eyes inadvertently disrespected her as well, a mistake that will probably come up again in a future altercation. **Sigh**

Key Takeaways

So what have we learned? When a customer takes the time to send you an email or call you on the phone, make sure that the customer never leaves angry. Do what you must do and make things right, especially if it is your fault.

If there’s one piece of wisdom that I’ve gained from dealing with customers, it’s that their emotions are worth way more than any dollar value. If you can deal with a negative situation in a positive fashion, you can almost always turn the customer around.

After all, whenever you are representing your small business, you have to take off your operations hat and don your marketing cap. Conversations with the customer absolutely matter and even though you might lose a few dollars in the process, it’s worth every penny in terms of mind share because the effects are exponential.

“The Big Convenient SuperStore” lost more than just my wife as a customer that day. I’m no longer allowed to shop there and most likely my kids and her friends will not either. Word travels fast.

(view original author http://mywifequitherjob.com/how-to-avoid-negative-reviews-and-bad-publicity-for-your-online-store)