User Experience on a Phone Call

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I just had a horrible user experience.

I feel just a little ashamed of myself, but only a little, and only towards the young lady I just spoke to on the phone. It was not her fault that she received lousy training. But she caught the brunt of making me a very unhappy camper. I hope I did not hurt her feelings, but I sort of let her have it with both barrels. No yelling or cursing, mind you. I have not done that since I was a kid. But she knew I was not happy.

It was a bait-and-switch call. It used to be only by mail or internet spam. Now it is by phone and it gets around my “do not call” status. Allow me to set it up a bit.

My wife and I have investment accounts with one of the large banks in the area. Both of us are on all accounts or have been given explicit permission to share information,  so anyone authorized to ask, could speak to either of us. As I was writing an article on user experience for a major national publication on the subject, the phone rang. I saw the name, so I answered. The young lady asked to speak to my wife about “her account”. I said she was not in, but could I take a message. She said no, but she was just calling about “her account”. So I asked if it was the investment group and called them by name. She said that it was not those accounts, just about “her account”. That’s when it hit me.

I asked her if she was in a local bank branch. She said “Yes”. I asked her if this was a solicitation call. She said no, this was just a courtesy call about my wife’s account. That is when I went off just a bit. This was a bait-and-switch solicitation call. My wife has no accounts with this bank, but this young lady was trying to sell her one. It was a sales call. Have you recently received any mail “about your account” only to find out that it is an offer to open a new account with someone. Well, it has not gone from envelopes and email to phone calls. Perhaps this is old news to you, but this is the first one I have gotten.

What this bank has done, instead of creating a new customer, has created an angry person. I would never open an account with them. There are too many competitors who do not engage in this foolishness.

How could she have done better? All it would have taken was the truth. Ever heard of it? Apparently it is a novel approach to some people. All she had to do was tell me she was with “Whatever Bank” and that she would like to talk to me about the possibility of opening an account with them. I would likely have said “no thank you” and she could have gone on to the next person on her list. Or I might have been someone who was contemplating a change. But that is not what she did.

Now, not only will I not open an account with “Whatever Bank” but I will make sure some of my friends know what happened to me.

User experience is a big deal. Take time to get it right the first time.

 

Your company name should be a clue to what you do

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If I had gotten this advice long ago, I would have changed the name of my company slightly. It is too far along at this point, but I want to offer some learned advice from some great trusted sources, and a bit of my own expertise on content.

This is longer than one of my typical posts, but I want a certain group to see the reasoning behind what I spotted. For start-up companies, understanding these issues is important.

I was talking to Bryan Brough last week about Go Wedding Pro and something hit me. What was it about the name that did not seem to fit? The words Wedding Pro are perfect. It gives an immediate picture of his genre. What about the leading word Go? It did not seem to do anything positive for them. In fact, I have read some research that indicates that for search robot purposes, the fact that an unrelated word precedes the main topic, it might be a detriment.

So I called a couple of friends who have deep backgrounds in naming brands successfully to get their slant. They agreed. Here is the gist of the conversations and reasoning.

In our case with Go Wedding Pro, the word go does not really relate to what the company does. It is understood that there is a gorilla in the market by the name of Go Daddy. But that is a very unique exception. From the outset, they took the approach of blatantly using sexual innuendo and a giant ad campaign to sell their idea. It was immediately unique and different. But this is something that cannot be copied easily.

Use of the word Go does not take us to any other level of intellectual understanding.

Let me add that it is a giant mistake to think in terms of adding a bunch more words. Three is the best, with four at the outside. But they should join the name of the company to what it does.

There are an infinite number of ways to do this, but what might work? I am just scratching at a few. First, what is the problem you are solving? Use that to create the name of the company. And while you are at it, you might think of a couple of other items – a tag line, and perhaps an even more important opening title or initial thought.

I came up with a list of related words and started playing with the ideas. Management was the first idea I had. Then I hit these:

Administration, suite, adviser, tracker, data tracker, planner, planning tracker, mobile tracking, mobile management, steward (a little obscure), superintendent, supervisor, action tracker, task tracker, performance tracker. These were just mine. There are more out there.

Then I looked at a few possible tag lines or title lines that can be followed by a sub-title that explains it even further.

Wedding Pro Planner: A mobile software designed to track multiple tasks associated with wedding planning. 

Wedding Pro Supervisor – Mobile Software to Track Wedding Planning Tasks

Wedding Pro Tracker – Real time mobile tracking of all wedding planning tasks. Taking the confusion out of wedding planning. For the first time. the bride and all of her vendors can know which tasks have been performed and which ones need to be completed. 

You might use thoughts like consolidation or ending of confusion, making planning easier, taking the drudgery out of planning, taking stress off of the bride and everyone else involved, etc.

When people talk about optimizing websites, what they mostly talk about is search engine optimization. But what happens when your keyword search turns up 25 or 30 companies on one search page? (10 on Google default, 7 or 8 on a geo-map, and 7 or 8 more on a Google PPC plan). What they really need is content that optimizes the readers’ thought processes. That is where the psychology of well-crafted strategic language becomes quite powerful in winning new clients for you.

For those of you who attended, that is what I was talking about in my seminar two weeks ago. Name, title, USP, further value proposition, supporting evidence, and repeated calls to action.

The more complicated the sale is and the more new information people are seeing, the more important this becomes. If it is much beyond a simple point, click, purchase – indicating a relatively inexpensive sale – the more important this becomes.

And one last piece of advice from a very learned confidant of mine. He pointed out that recent research on the common use of shortened, hyphenated, or oddly combined words to come up with a company name is proving to be a bad idea.. Why? Because it does not get to the heart of the matter might tend to be a bit confusing. In an effort at too much brevity, we can do more harm than good. In other words, it might be better to call a company Turner’s Accounting Company, LLC than Turnco, LLC simply because of the speed at which the idea of the type of company is planted in the reader’s mind.

I have also read similar research that plainly indicates that when we try to get to cute with ideas rather than to be simple and direct, our marketing conversion rates suffer.

 

Using Conflicting Terms Ruins Effective Marketing Communications

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In order to successfully communicate your ideas to others, the worst thing you can do is to confuse them.

Working in the field of user experience (Ux), I find much well-intended but highly unreliable information available in places many people use as common resources, especially some widely used Internet based information repositories. Using common information improperly can be very detrimental to your business.

Yesterday, along with co-presenter Patricia Weber of Professional Strategies, I spoke to a small group of technology start-up companies working out of Hatch Norfolk. In that short talk, I explained the difference between two terms often used interchangeably as having the same meaning: value proposition and unique selling proposition (USP). Before pinning this, I popped out to a “popular Internet information source” to see what was there, and found a third term being used in a very confusing manner to describe a USP. The phrases being described as USP’s were merely tag lines.

This is my way of helping you distinguish terms that may help you communicate your ideas more effectively.

A unique selling proposition is a phrase describing some factor (or set of factors) that is exclusive to your product or service. Marketers would call it a “differentiator” – something that no one else may lay claim to. (Hint: it is not you). It distinctly sets your product or service apart from the rest of the people who do what you do. Typically, but not always, a product or service will have only one USP, and they do not change. But they may well be considered a feature of a value proposition.

A value propositions are simply invitations to participate in offers. They can change daily and are frequently not at all unique or different from one another. They simply entice participation, and can be described as an advertisement of nearly any type: coupon, sale, promotion, special – any reason to participate. They are often accompanied by a call to action, which is some type of prompting tool to remind and encourage the reader to do something – take action. It might be as simple as “click here”.

Tag lines are a part of branding – a descriptive phrase used to describe a product, service, or company. They frequently follow and and are used in support of a company logos. The tag line I saw misused to describe a USP was “You get rid of dandruff”. Not only is that not a USP (any dandruff shampoo could make that same statement) but it was the wrong one.

So when you use terms to describe yourself or company, you should do all you can to make sure you are using them properly. If you confuse a reader or listener, they are likely only a few steps or a click from making an escape.

Website Clarity Demands Speed as a Design Element

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A leading online research firm I follow often has written a great deal lately about message clarity. For the purposes of this quick post, I want to choose another word for clarity: speed.

Amateurs try to persuade with facts. Persuasion by facts takes too long. Professionals talk about value. Value can be portrayed in seconds. Want an example of fast persuasion? It is pretty easy. Her you go.

“Our clients choose us because we are a website content development firm with a history of doubling our clients’ web readership, and they tell us that they are selling more services”.

When someone chooses a search query, they want to know where they are, what they can do, and why they should participate. Can they tell that within the first few seconds of arriving at your website or reading your printed materials? Are you sure?

At The Start of a Marketing Strategy – Business Cards

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Don’t forget this much overlooked and maligned tool. It is still in wide use today, especially if you network in business/ social circles and many of us do. Therefore their design and printing should be considered an important tool of your business planning.

Employ strategies that revolve around their use by the recipient. Design should meet the expectations and user experience of the recipient, not necessarily the person handing them out.  Here are some general rules to follow when designing or having someone design and print your business cards.

  1. In order to make your marketing message clear, use as little information on any side as possible or you invite confusion. I suggest that the face contain a your logo, name, important subtitle, and contact information – little else.
  2. Allow room for recipients to write on the card. The card is an information source for their use, not yours. Information optimization should always be considered.
  3. Do not allow both sides of the card to be heavily coated and never (rarely) use plastic or metal cards. Why? You cannot write on them and that defeats their general purpose of record keeping – a major function of the user experience. This is especially so if you frequently exchange or send large numbers of business cards. There is paper stock called C1S – Coated on One Side. It is a good choice.
  4. I urge keeping white or light colored backgrounds on both sides. Why? User experience again. Many people write notes on cards immediately upon receipt. For example, as soon as I get one in a room full of people, I want to begin the segregation of those I want to follow up with, not follow up with, and why.
  5. The obverse of number four: Fight the use of “white fonts on a black background” even if someone tells you it “looks cutting edge”. Too often, the fonts are going to be relatively small and difficult to read, and you cannot write on it. I have had more than one client conversation where the definition of “cutting edge” turns out to be “simple and easy to use”.
  6. Font size – make it as large as possible for easy reading without losing the ability to contain necessary information. Business cards cannot finish the sales and marketing job for you – only start it. Ease of reading also reduces errors in transcription by assistants or scanners – another user experience key.
  7. Font type – unless VERY carefully chosen, do not use “script” fonts. Instead, choose something like you see here. Card scanners and people transcribing them do not do well with script letters. Arial, Calibri, and Helvetica are three of the most commonly used commercial fonts because they are so easy on the eye. Do not get fancy here. Instead, get functional, and consider the user.
  8. Make them the standard size. In the US and most foreign cards I have received, they are approximately 2 inches by 3 1/2 inches (5 cm x 9 cm). I have seen a lot of fancy sizes. they can look cool, but odd sizes frequently foul up the intent of the user as a reminder in a filing system for contact at a later time. Where do you put the odd-sized card? Often in the “round file” – a.k.a waste basket.
  9. Long lists on the back of the card are frequently ineffective. The reasons are three-fold. (1) Human short term memory will generally only allow us to remember the first three items on a list. We forget the remainder (2) Too much information is confusing and human beings psychologically shy away from confusion (3) The paradox of white space means that the more white (or uncluttered) space there is on a canvas, the more they eye is drawn to what is written. Less is more in sales strategy.
  10. If you add something on the back, make the marketing message short. Instead of a list, tell the reader why your clients choose you – briefly – and drive them to your website for the story that you might not have time to give in person.
A footnote – the best business cards I have ever seen were corporate cards provided for selection when I worked for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Each box of 500 contained 125 each of four scenes of the Wells Fargo Stage – horses galloping – one scene for each season of the year. It was either that or my picture. It is the only card I have ever used or seen that made people stop and say “That is the nicest looking business card I have ever seen”. That is a darned good start to any business conversation.