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What do people expect from your brand on the internet?

In the past, companies relied on putting out a solid product or offering a quality service. Their internet presence may have been a little clumsy and unreliable, but customers were willing to forgive a painful online experience. After all, doing business on the internet was something that very few companies were doing perfectly. There was a time when a mediocre online presence was better than no online presence at all.

Times have changed. Customers have high expectations of web applications, and especially web applications that take their money. A failed transaction on the internet is no less frustrating than a failed transaction at a brick and mortar store.

The entire end-to-end customer experience surrounding a product or service is just as important as the product or service itself.

An interesting quote that comes to mind about this subject is from Gordon Ramsey, who waxes poetically about quality in his own special way:

“It doesn’t matter how amazing the steak is, if it’s served on a cold plate it’s crap. If it’s served with a dull knife it’s crap. If the gravy isn’t piping hot, it’s crap. If you’re eating it on an uncomfortable chair, it’s crap. If it’s served by an ugly waiter who just came in from a smoke break, it’s crap. Because I care about the steak, I have to care about everything around it.“

We take for granted how seamless doing business on the internet usually is. I’ve been buying and selling online since Amazon first opened their doors. In them old days (less than 10 years ago), things were pretty sketchy. Transactions failed routinely and websites often provided a frustrating customer experience. Things have changed significantly since then. Now when I do business online it almost always just works. But once in awhile a company does the equivalent of serving a beautiful steak on a cold plate, with a dull knife, by a waiter who ashed all over my gravy.

A real life example

I recently tried to buy a product from Native Instruments via their online shop. I downloaded a trial version of Guitar Rig 4 Pro, used it, and loved it enough that I decided that I wanted to give them $199 USD of my hard earned money. They obviously spent a lot of time producing a nice demo to entice a purchase, but they dropped the ball on a crucial aspect of the purchase chain; their online shop. I wanted to start rocking out, immediately. I wanted to pay them.

Convincing a customer to give you money is the hard part.

Taking it should be easy.

I’ve bought a number of excellent music-related products over the internet from wonderful companies including XLN Audio, iZotope, Ableton, and the list goes on. Software companies are, generally speaking, remarkably good at making sure customers have no problem giving them money. They are software companies, after all, it’s their bread and butter. Their web-based software should be of the same quality as the rest of the software they produce and sell.

Trying out the demo version

First off, Guitar Rig 4 Pro rocks. I wanted to give my money to Native Instruments so I could party like it was 1999. I took the demo version for a spin and fell in love. The demo version clearly explains how to go about becoming a paid customer:

So far, so good. The dialog clearly communicates the ordering options. I can either go to the store (reseller), or grab a copy from the online shop. Obviously, I decide on the online shop. I want to rock out, now! I’m figuring it’s a simple credit card transaction before I can click on that nice little Activate button and be well on my way to playing arenas!

Spending money

I click Buy, and instead of being taken to a page specifically related to purchasing Guitar Rig 4, I was taken to their main site. Interesting. They’ve just put multiple steps in between their customer and their customer’s money. This is always a bad idea from a usability perspective. If you’re selling a product or service online, repeat after me: taking money should be easy. As few clicks as possible. Keep it simple. Regardless, I find what I’m looking for quick enough, the download version of Guitar Rig 4 Pro.

I make my selection and attempt to check out. I enter all of my personal details, my credit card information, and complete the multi-step check out process. I anxiously await a serial number, or at least the promise of a serial number. I’m mere moments away from rocking out!

Instead, catastrophe! I’m redirected to an error page that instructs me to contact order support. I don’t receive any kind of e-mail notification of the error, or even a helpful phone number to call. Not even a link to an order support contact form! Just a cryptic sentence, “contact order support.”

At this point I have no idea what stage of the transaction failed. Was the error related to processing my credit card? Was the transaction itself successful but an error occurred during acknowledgment? Did something go horribly wrong and they’re shipping a boxed version to me instead? At this point I simply want to cancel the entire transaction and go buy a boxed version from a retail outlet, but I don’t want to wind up owning two copies of Guitar Rig 4 Pro, as much as I like it. I obediently fill out the support form to enquire about the error. I anxiously await a response. Here’s part of the automated response letter I receive a few moments later:

“Dear Customer,

thanks for your e-mail. A new ticket has been created for your request. We will reply to your request as soon as possible.
We are currently reorganizing our whole Order Management System in order to provide you with an even better and improved service. Due to the complex technical migration, delays in delivery and billing can emerge in individual cases.
We are working intensely on the fluent implementation of the new system, and we would like to apologize for possible inconveniences.”

This response brings up a few interesting points concerning the end-to-end customer experience of an e-commerce site:

• Always provide a clear timeframe for a human response. Expectations count. Will a response arrive within an hour? 24 hours? A business day? 48 hours? A month? “As soon as possible” is about the same as “whenever we feel like it”.
• Technical debt is evil. Native Instruments incurred technical debt with their existing ordering system and are “working intensely on the fluent implementation of the new system”. Their technical debt is bad enough that they communicate it to all customers that request support. Decisions like this are organizational, and can always be avoided. There’s no need to ever be in a position that a major overhaul of any system is required to simply keep the lights on.
• Be like Oz. Sometimes it’s better for the wizard to hide behind the curtain. It’s perfectly alright not to tell your customers everything about your internal systems. Then again, customers don’t care what lurks behind the curtain when your systems actually work.
• Simple things should be simple. We’ve been accepting payments over the interweb for well over a decade. This is trivial stuff. Don’t focus so intensely on the difficult aspects of your business (such as developing a guitar amp simulator) that you’re forced to neglect the easy stuff (providing prompt responses to support enquires).
• Don’t make your problems your customer’s problems. Native Instruments is obviously having issues with their payment system. The technical migration of their online system is complex. They told me all about it! All of a sudden their complex technical migration became my problem. Fix problems, don’t explain them. Obviously, nothing is perfect, and once in awhile issues crop up that demand solutions. Having spent over a decade developing web-applications for banks, I’ve dealt with my share of technical issues that required immediate solutions. If a “payment system” was so broken that we felt compelled to offer an explanation in an auto-response e-mail, we would have simply shut it down until the problem was resolved. And trust me, we would have been working rotating 24/7 shifts to get the payment system back to full health.

At the bottom of the auto-responder e-mail I received is a phone number, so I decided to call it.

“Native Instruments North America, Inc.
5631 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
USA
http://www.native-instruments.com

Tel +1.866.556.6487
Fax +1.866.556.6490″

Unfortunately, no go. I’m from Canada. That 1-866 number they sent me is only reachable from the USA. Even though I entered my location information on their support contact form, they still provide me with a support number that I’m unable to reach.

• Make sure the entire experience of your site is custom tailored to your customers. If you ask for personal details, use them. Small details count. If you ask for someone’s full name, use it in all your communications with them, including auto-response e-mails.
• Localization counts. The world is a small place. It’s not USA-centric. It should be easy and clear for customers to contact you no matter where they live. If your 1-800 number only works in the USA, but your customer lives in South America, make sure to provide them with a number they can actually call.

Doing it right

Companies like Rackspace get customer service right. They go even further than providing prompt e-mail and phone support; they provide live, 24/7, human-to-human text chat via their site with guaranteed response times. These types of services are available for next to nothing for any site and are a great way to boost customer satisfaction. Get Satisfaction is another company whose entire purpose is customer support, or more accurately, customer-centric support.

Doing it wrong

After digging around on the Native Instruments site a little while longer, I found a local Los Angeles number to call for support. I dialed them up and dug through the menu options, finally to be told that “all available operators are busy” and that if I’m calling during regular business hours to “try again later”.

No thanks. I’m at the point where it’s easier to deal with the credit card company if anything funky shows up on my statement.

Moral of the story? Pay attention to the entire customer experience. Every single detail that surrounds the product or service you offer is just as important as the product or service itself. You usually only get one shot to take someone’s money. The hard part is convincing them to give it to you to in the first place. Don’t refuse to accept it.

Don’t get me wrong. Native Instruments produces some wonderful software. Guitar Rig 4 Pro is awesome, which is why I wanted to buy it in the first place. I just wish the plate they served it on was warmer, the chair was more comfortable, and the waiter didn’t ash all over my gravy.

The outcome

I sent the e-mail to order support over a week ago and still haven’t heard back from Native Instruments. The great thing about the internet is that a competing product is never far away…

Luckily for me, IK Multimedia recently released AmpliTube 3. I hadn’t tried the demo out before I attempted my Guitar Rig purchase, but holy f#!@, am I glad I found this thing! I’ve never heard tone like it, it’s amazing! The box shot sums up exactly how I feel right now…

Sometimes you only get one chance to make a sale. Sometimes you get a second chance. If you screw both up, remember that there’s always a competing company ready to take your customer’s money.

Also remember that no matter how good your product is, the entire experience surrounding the purchase and ongoing use of a product is just as important as the product itself. Coffee shops manage to get this right, otherwise we’d all be drinking 25 cent coffee at home.