December 1999 Archives
Thursday, December 23, 1999
Customer Experience Is Not Usability: When I was interviewed for the usability-focused WebWord site awhile back, I explained that Creative Good is not a usability firm. (We're a strategic Net consulting firm; if you want corporate info, check the CG website.) Usability is not the key driver of success online. Instead, usability is one important component of the overall customer experience -- and the customer experience is the key driver of success online. (Here's my WebWord interview where I said this.)
Usability is a mostly tactical discipline, developed in the software industry. The generally accepted authority on Web usability is Jakob Nielsen, who writes the excellent useit website and who himself has a background in software usability.
Customer experience, however, is a strategic issue that impacts all levels of the organization -- from senior management to customer service reps -- and all departments: marketing, technology, design, human resources, and yes, usability. Customer experience is the holistic, strategic issue that is the basis of success or failure in e-business. To my knowledge, Creative Good is the only company that focuses exclusively on this issue.
Anyway, I thought my WebWord interview would raise some hackles in the usability community, considering that I was recently chided when I delivered the same message to a group of usability professionals. Imagine my surprise when the most recent WebWord interview arrived this week featuring Donald Norman himself, author of "The Design of Everyday Things" and a sort of godfather of usability -- and he validated the Creative Good message. Norman said the following:
Usability is always secondary. It's never the most important thing about an experience. I will accept poor usability if I get what I need, if the total experience is great. I will reject perfect usability if I am not rewarded with a useful, engaging experience.
So remember: usability is important, but it's customer experience that really drives success online. Good experience wins!
(Here's the WebWord interview of Donald Norman.)
Fortune: Interesting profile of Farzad "Zod" Nazem, Yahoo's chief technology officer and the person (reportedly) responsible for keeping Yahoo's design fast and simple for the past three years. The simple design not only makes customers happy -- it also makes Yahoo's technology folks happy... because guess what -- the simpler a site design, the less load on the servers when lots of traffic comes in.
Which reminds me. An interviewer asked me yesterday if I thought simplicity was no longer so important, since sites can be more sophisticated now in the designs and features they offer customers. Of course not. A quick and easy customer experience is, and will continue to be, the key driver of e-business success. If you don't believe me, walk outside in Manhattan and see any of a zillion New York buses bearing the AOL ad: "So easy to use, no wonder it's #1." Or look at Amazon's dominance, which comes not from first-mover advantage (it wasn't the first online bookstore, after all) but from its consistent delivery of a good experience. Or look at Fortune's article about Yahoo above. Good experience wins.
Happy Holidays: Goodexperience.com now takes a break for the holidays! Back on Monday, January 3rd. Have a good holiday.
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Wednesday, December 22, 1999
MSNBC: Who says Amazon is the only e-commerce site worth noticing? MSNBC's Teri Goldberg points out ten lesser known online sellers that have distinctive qualities. Amazon and other heavies are not in the list.
Upside: Richard Brandt reports on Creative Good's predictions of the holiday e-commerce hangover -- that many sites (as reported in our holiday e-commerce report) aren't as convenient as customers would like them to be. (And in a funny aside, Brandt gives his take on the name Creative Good: "Have you noticed that tech companies are starting
to develop names that sound like socialist PACs?") A recent Mercury Center article reported on disappointed holiday shoppers.
Traffick.com: Brief reviews of all the major portal sites (Yahoo, Lycos, etc.). I disagree with its conclusion: "Now that the Web audience and browser technology are maturing, perhaps it's time for portals to begin using snazzier graphics and more sophisticated navigation systems." As the Web matures, experienced users will want it easier, not harder or slower or snazzier. Keep it simple. (And if that means that some of the portals will drop out of this overcrowded market, so be it.)
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Tuesday, December 21, 1999
ABC News: Jeff Bezos is the Time Man of the Year. This probably isn't news to anyone who's been monitoring the headlines today; what I might add is that Jeff Bezos's success is linked directly to the good experience he created on the Amazon website. In a way, the "man" of the year is the online customer experience. (Here's the Time Magazine story announcing the award.)
By the way, I'm almost sure that in five or ten years it will be laughable that an online shopping mall, of all things, got the prominence in 1999 that a Nixon or Gandhi had gotten in years past. Shows where America's popular attention was in 1999: the Net, and the stock market it created.
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Monday, December 20, 1999
InfoWorld: Yet another top-ten list of customer experience beefs, this time from InfoWorld's Sean Dugan (whose last appearance in goodexperience.com was on 11/22/99, available in the November 1999 archives).
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Friday, December 17, 1999
Joho on Alta Vista: The excellent Joho webzine article notes the relationship between AltaVista's print ads (i.e. its promise to customers) and the site itself (i.e. its delivery of those promises in the customer experience). Apparently, the ads imply a good experience with high-brow queries ("Where do we come from?"), yet the site delivers amusingly irrelevant results ("Did french fries come from France?").
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Thursday, December 16, 1999
Authenticity, Please: At the GII Awards (for top websites) the other night, a Microsoft executive gave a keynote speech about Microsoft's vision of the Net's future. Comedian Paula Poundstone, the master of ceremonies, then came to the podium and delivered her keynote, in which she mercilessly roasted our Redmond friend for several minutes. "And about scheduling meetings," she said (and I'm paraphrasing here) -- "what happens if I want to see my friend, but I don't have the right equipment? What's my friend going to say -- 'I can't see you any more, because you have the wrong equipment'?" Huge laughs from the audience.
Even though the roast was good-natured, and I expect (though I couldn't see him) that the Microsoft executive was laughing along, Poundstone showed that the Microsoft speech had failed. And after discussing with some Creative Good team members, I think I know what caused the failure: a lack of authenticity. The Microsoft executive literally read his speech off of teleprompters -- no deviating from the party line, and no sign (in my opinion) of real passion or belief in what he was saying.
I know that tedious speeches like this get delivered every day in meetings and conferences all over the world; the main difference here was that audience members had Paula Poundstone to voice their thoughts. But it bears stating that authenticity counts -- and especially in the Net industry, where we have all been subjected to such a high degree of bull for a long time. Net-savvy audiences today appreciate speakers who speak from what they believe in, or who simply state an original thought they came up with. And as the industry increasingly becomes driven by the customer and the customer experience, conference audiences will accordingly demand to have speakers who speak to the audience, not to the teleprompter.
P.S. To come clean, I'm probably biased in my telling of the story. I should admit that Creative Good was one of the few companies not needled by Paula Poundstone. When our CEO, Phil Terry, was introduced to give an award, Paula said, "Creative Good, what a beautiful company. They do good, and they do it creatively." Uhhh.... thanks :)
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Wednesday, December 15, 1999
SiliconValley.com: Dan Gillmor weighs in with another excellent article, this time about the dos and don'ts of Web design. This is somewhat similar to the e-commerce best practices methodology Creative Good uses on our best practices site on ZDNet. (By the way, Dan Gillmor's most recent article featured in goodexperience.com is in my December 1 post.)
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Tuesday, December 14, 1999
Useit.com: This column by Jakob Nielsen describes why focus groups, the traditional market research tool, are no substitute for usability tests. (A focus group contains one moderator and a half dozen consumers sitting aroud the table, answering questions about what they like an dislike. A usability test is a one-on-one interaction that shows what the customer actually does on a site.) However, I'd take Jakob one step further: usability tests are the second best test methodology I've seen. Creative Good uses our own "listening lab" methodology that is more open-ended than usability tests -- after all, we're exploring the holistic customer experience, not just usability. I'd like to describe our listening lab method in a free white paper, when I get the time.
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Monday, December 13, 1999
On personalization and one-to-one: I've gotten to know the tailor in the small town where I live. When I walk in, he greets me by name and we spend a few minutes chatting about the weather, the town, and about anything but business. My visit to his shop is a good experience not because he remembers my purchase history or my exact measurements, or because he serves up customized advertising based on my demographics (as if!). Instead, I like that particular tailor because he's an enjoyable person, and because he does good work.
Unfortunately, computers can't deliver a full one-to-one experience in the way that my tailor does. The best personalization features in e-commerce can deliver, at best, some stored measurements or purchase history or other database data. Technology may never be able to create a truly personal, enjoyable experience the way a good mom 'n' pop store can.
What websites can do, however, is focus on the holistic combination generated by all elements of the site: the graphics, messaging, page flow, usability, merchandising, promotions, features, customer service, and so on. This is the strategic customer experience that determines the overall success of a site. The customer experience is much more effective than a flimsy piece of software that shoots a piece of pre-recorded data at the customer.
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Friday, December 10, 1999
Industry Standard: Yet another comment that spending on flashy advertising is not the key driver of e-business success. Key quote: "Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto warns that while marketing and brand recognition drive traffic, it is a site's merchandise and ease of use that drive sales. 'The thing that separates the winners from losers is the ability to convert that traffic into sales,' he says." The article continues by noting that "Nordstrom (NOBE) .com is spending $15 million on advertising during the holidays." Driving traffic is important, but the key driver of success online is the experience customers have when they get to the site.
MediaInfo.com: Good reviews of two recent books from Jakob Nielsen and David Shenk. Both books make the point (familiar to the readers of this site) that simplicity is ever more important in a medium suffering from data glut and complexity.
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Thursday, December 9, 1999
Internet Stock Report: This article lists the buzzwords commonly used today in the Net business, citing examples like this: "[Company] delivers a new value proposition to companies with global commerce needs by combining a high-powered solution with low total cost of ownership." Unclear writing like this is all over Web services companies these days. In my opinion, many of these confused companies are more interested in their IPO than in actually creating something good for their clients or the online customer. Clear, simple writing is a clue that a company does good work.
Good Campaign Donation Experience?: Featuring six Republican hopefuls, the recent presidential debate in Manchester, New Hampshire touched on (of all things) the online experience. Senator Orrin Hatch made this comment: "I think true campaign finance reform is what I'm doing. Today you can get everybody who's donated to me on my web page: www.orrinhatch.com or orrinhatch.org. I have to say, Governor [Bush], in contrast to yours, it's easy to find everything on mine. (Chuckles.) It's pretty tough to use yours! Yours is not user friendly."
So nice to see the candidates debate on some substantive issues for once :) (Here's the full transcript of the debate.) Thanks to Victor Lombardi at Razorfish for the pointer to this gem.
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Wednesday, December 8, 1999
@NY on customer experience: This excellent article states that customers are in control, and that their experience on a site drives its success or failure. It's nice to see a leading Net pub validate what Creative Good has been saying for three years. This quote says it all: "With competitors only a click away, consumers will always desert any company for any other company if the second company has a marginally better convenience and/or price proposition. Convenience and price are the only meaningful differentiators to date." In other words, the customer experience is the key driver of success online.
USA Today: Shipping costs are part of the customer experience on retail sites. Customers prefer those costs to be upfront, or free. Still, most companies focus their millions on advertising instead of the customer experience. Outpost CEO Bob Bowman explains why his shipping costs are free: "You can spend $12 million on ads, or provide a service to the customer. We think this is a better strategy." I agree.
Business Week: TV ads for dotcoms are changing for the better: they're beginning to clearly tell customers why they should come to the site. This is good because customers want clarity in their online experience -- and a straightforward TV ad can begin a clear, easy experience for customers.
Associated Press: Some drawbacks of customer service solutions. Key quote: "Service agents, sometimes handling up to four customers at a time, often depend on scripted responses, and long pauses are common." Once again my reaction is that sites should focus first on the basic customer experience on their site -- then, once the experience is good, find appropriate customer service tools to handle the (much fewer) customers who have questions or problems.
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Tuesday, December 7, 1999
Yahoo Redesigns Home Page: Above Yahoo's standard category links is a green-and-white section labelled "Yahoo Shopping." This tactical change signals Yahoo's strategic move towards e-commerce and away from its beginnings as a simple, easy-to-use search engine.
Fun activity: compare Yahoo's home page designs before the change (11/3/99) and after the change (today, 12/7/99). Notice that the Help button in the upper-right has been replaced with "Shop Here!" -- another detail that points to Yahoo's move towards e-commerce.
For me, the most interesting issue is on the strategic level. A quick, easy customer experience garnered Yahoo the success it enjoys today -- and the new prominence of Yahoo Shopping complexifies the experience and could threaten Yahoo's core experience. What's more, the experience inside the Yahoo Shopping section leaves much to be desired; Yahoo simply passes customers off to its partner merchant sites, where the experience is not nearly as good as it is on Yahoo.
Credit: Lawrence Lee, who creates the excellent Tomalak's Realm website, reminded me to write about this. He also pointed out that ZDnet wrote a piece back in October about Yahoo's strategic shift (here it is). By the way, I highly recommend subscribing to Tomalak's Realm, from which I glean some of the pointers you see here at goodexperience.com.
New York Times on Boo: Boo.com gets another negative review, as does its flashy, unnecessary "Miss Boo" feature -- a poor implementation of customer service, if that's what it's trying for.
New York Times: Another piece about customer service, this time featuring LivePerson... it's an interesting feature, but (as in the pill below) I still argue it's more important to focus on the basic customer experience before installing expensive customer service technology.
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Monday, December 6, 1999
Forrester Research on Customer Service: Good summary of what Forrester found in its survey of customer service in e-commerce. But remember that customer service is just one part of a holistic, strategic customer experience. It's best to invest first in the basic experience on a site, to minimize demand on your customer service resources.
Kenneth Cole overdesign: Apparently ignoring the demise of levis.com, and the inevitable failure of boo.com, the fashion brand Kenneth Cole has launched yet another overdesigned retail site. Good branding does not come from heavy graphics and frames. A good experience for a fashion site communicates the brand without slowing or confusing the customer. For now, let's set the timer... I predict kennethcole.com will be redesigning for the customer within a year, once they learn the importance of a good experience.
On long domain names: Amazon and Ebay have succeeded in part because of their quick, easy domain names. The good customer experience starts as the customer types the domain into the Web browser (perhaps after seeing a TV commercial). Conversely, typing in a long or hard-to-spell domain name is the start of a bad customer experience. Which is why I wonder why anyone in their right mind would want the longest word in the English language as a domain.
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Friday, December 3, 1999
Industry Standard: A cogent article on the continual waste of money on dotcom advertising. A good ad is part of a good customer experience, so yes, ads are essential. But many sites spend heavily on ads and fail to invest in the customer experience on the site itself. It's no wonder, then, that the Industry Standard writes articles about the "backfiring" of dotcom ads. TV ads are fun to buy and do gain some market share, but there's a higher ROI in creating the right customer experience strategy for the site itself.
Yahoo Makes the Free Parking Change: My entry from November 23 mentioned an experience mistake on Yahoo -- searching on "free parking" brought up results that began, "no free parking for you!" Yahoo has since fixed the problem. Here's the results page before (11/23) and after (12/02) the fix. I have no idea if goodexperience.com had to do with the fix, but it's nice to see Yahoo continually improving its customer experience.
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Thursday, December 2, 1999
The customer experience of news sites: Online retail sites get most of the attention in customer experience-related articles... but in this article, Steve Outing comments on the customer experience of news sites. A good read, especially if you're in the content business.
Mercury Center: The Saint Louis Galleria mall gives up on its ban of URLs in the stores. Duh. Did they really think they could erase the Web from shopper's minds (let alone go around the policies of its corporate tenants)?
Branding by Building Flashy Sites: At a recent presentation, one audience member asked my opinion on his new project: a website for a branded alcoholic drink. The website was full of various plug-ins and flashy trinkets; lacking the appropriate plug-in, I was booted out almost immediately. Not a good experience.
Thinking about it more, I understood the designer's quandary. The site can't offer e-commerce, since the product is alcoholic. So: given a wad of money to spend on "online branding," what else can the company do but a build a site full of flashy gizmos? Yes, some visitors will be booted out because of missing plug-ins, but then, only a few people will visit the site anyway. (Who goes to a site because they see it on the bottle of their drink? The brand experience is in the drink, not on some site that flies the drink's logo around the page.)
In the end, I had a hard time giving any opinion on the site at all. The way I see it, the client was determined to spend money online... the resulting site will be fun for a few people with plug-ins, and it will be ignored by the vast majority of customers who will never visit. I'm not sure any good was created, but the whole thing is mostly harmless. Tie game.
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Wednesday, December 1, 1999
Internet Week: Good review of search functionality, and how different e-commerce and b2b sites are implementing it. Shows the strengths and weaknesses of Ask Jeeves, one of the more popular solutions these days.
AOL's Opt-Out Arrogance: After actively requesting no spam or other direct-marketing nonsense from AOL, one customer receives a note from AOL saying he must actively opt out again, or they'll start up the spam on him again. All I can say is -- what is AOL thinking?? Long-term, this will destroy AOL's precious customer experience that made it so successful in the first place. Kudos to Mercury Center's Dan Gillmor for another excellent column (my 11/16 post showed another one).
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Copyright 1999, Mark Hurst.
