Reduce Uncertainty for Ecommerce Customers

The Hartford surpasses the auto insurance competition when it comes to ease of use of their website. That’s the conclusion of a report just released by New York-based Change Sciences Group. The assessment methodology counts keystrokes, mouse movements, and website delays. The methodology also considers the readability of what’s on the site.
     Change Sciences says their results show there are substantial areas for improving how companies communicate with their ecommerce shoppers. I agree, and I see these areas for improving as opportunities for you to achieve a retailer’s edge over your competition.
     My chief advice: Reduce uncertainty for your ecommerce customers.

• Give ongoing status reports. As a rule, ecommerce customers don’t like to wait. But what they hate even more than a long wait is not knowing how long they’ll need to wait. For instance, the Change Sciences report points out that auto insurance websites must deal with all the complexities of recommending coverage options and then generating a rate quote. Good ecommerce sites show an hourglass icon while the system is working. Better ecommerce sites show an animated progress bar moving toward 100%.
• Provide prompt access to answers. The Change Sciences report says that in about 75% of the cases, a person wouldn’t be able to find an answer to a question when using the site. Maybe that’s because users weren’t looking hard enough and long enough. Chances are that a number of the people you want as customers have not yet fully refined their skills at locating answers on even a well-designed ecommerce site. Good sites have a “Contact Us” button that produces an e-mail address. On better ecommerce sites, the button would read “Have a question?,” and clicking the button produces the toll-free number of a phone that will be answered before the second ring.