Thinking About User Annoyances: Best Way Ever to Succeed with eCommerce Sites
You’ve probably been selling nicely online for a few months now; as you do so, you might think it’s the right time to change the gear and be smarter. But, as you attempt to do more, make sure you don’t put your customers off, since it’s easy to annoy them. One single mistake may cause you some ugly cussing. I’m pretty sure you don’t want that or for that matter, no online retailer would like that.
Not that I’m saying you do it deliberately, but when customers don’t appreciate something, it definitely needs some consideration. After all, we are talking business. It’s no child’s play.
That being said, I’ve seen several websites completely ignoring their customer annoyance issues. I am taken aback when someone does that. For them, user annoyance doesn’t matter! Complacency is all I could see here, which is not healthy to say the least. Making your users suffer due to issues at your end could take you down the hill. The issues, however could be minor, but that shouldn’t stop the website to acknolwledge and address the issue.
Over and above, a user’s annoyance does matter! Beware all online retailers. You got to pay heed to this. I’m gonna list down some beef, which you don’t have to eat, but grasp.
Sites often have multitude of instances that dismay a user; in the form of small errors and other similar unpleasant instances. Now, let’s have a look at some of these instances.
Instance No. 1
‘Extremely irritating’ hover-over window
Pretty ironic it is, when you actually want to help a customer with that little hover-over chat window, but it does not really come across the the customer as ‘help’. Personally, I’ve never really had problems with that window, but my peers find it ‘terribly irritating’.
For online retailers, it happens usually, and it’s no surprise. We all have our own perceptions. You are misinterpreted, even when you actually wanted to offer help. But, think of it the other way round too. May be, you needed to think from the user’s perspective. Perhaps, you didn’t test this feature before making it live.
Instance No. 2
Vague payment methods before checkout
I second that. Happened with me a lot of times. Few sites never utter out what payment methods do they affirm. I’ve had to cancel my purchase several times due to this, only because the payment methods didn’t include the ones I wish to use. And you know what I did? I blocked these sites.
Instance No. 3
Incomplete details about products
Some online stores fail to tell if the product was only available online or the physical store does have it as well. Customer do like to cross-check the product both online and in real. Websites must blatantly feature this information along with the product. Also, some websites do not even offer proper dimensions about the product. That’s another thing to look into.
Instance No. 4
Delayed loading time
This is one thing that goes with every website. Visitors expect your pages to load quickly. They are more likely to hop on to another online shop in case the site doesn’t load in time. We have apparently been following this trend of online shopping, but if websites continue to re-iterate these things, I’m not sure what their future would be. I guess, one reason for pages loading slow is the ads that are displayed.
Instance No. 5
“Please Login to Check Out”
What? You want me to create an account before the purchase. I’m not doing that. Nobody has this extra time to register with you guys and then wait for your approval links and whatever… I am just here to shop to avoid the hitch of physically being present in the mall. I’ve given you my personal details already, why do you still have to ask for a login? Forcing people to sign-up with you for a purchase would move people away and in turn would lose you conversions. Show me some meat, then I might just register with you.
Instance No. 6
Toll free no. that doesn’t work
This is again a credibility demolisher. Sometimes, you might feel the need to track your order. There’s a toll-free no. on the site that you try calling, but it doesn’t work, and there’s no other method available to know about your order, except that of an e-mail. Imagine what would be the intensity of your frustration. Too bad, you don’t even have any other source to blurt it all out. Let’s either write a review about it or block the site.
Instance No.7
Ordered today, delivered 2 weeks later
Probably the biggest turn off ever for a customer. People hate to wait. They can keep themselves composed for a day or two, probably a couple more. But, more than a week’s time taken to deliver the product is actually not acceptable. They sometimes might turn down the delivery boy and send him back with the parcel. This is the level of anger a customer may go through. In this case, I was the angry customer who did this.
Well, these all are instances that either happened with me or with my acquaintances. It’s a piece of advice for eCommerce retailers that converting sales is tough when customer annoyances are ignored. To the very least, don’t assume that these are the only annoyances you should take care of. Chat it out with your customers to have a detailed data about other annoyances too. And yes, don’t just listen, fix it!
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