Archive for November, 2008
November 24, 2008
Guides, Not Straight Jackets
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard bemoan the limitations of draconian style and design guides for their corporate web site. It is a very common complaint and always happens to a certain extent. However, when the complaints are endemic it’s usually because the department that manages the site has determined their job is creating compliance rather than results.
The best web teams are those that focus on generating results above all else. Guides and standards can be very useful tools and I’ve helped to generate a bunch of them. However, they are a means to an end. Don’t let your guidelines become straight jackets that limit your ability to achieve fantastic results online.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | 2 Comments
November 19, 2008
Implications of Ecommerce Sales Slowing Down
The New York Times has had a couple of stories recently about ecommerce sales slowing down along with everything else. Here is a blog post from the Times on this. They are still growing but at a much slower pace.
There are some implications here for anyone who makes direct sales via their web site. The primary one is that the usability of your online store is more important now than ever. When times are good, it’s easy to ignore some loss of sales due to challenging interfaces. When numbers are no longer growing or even contracting, however, you can’t afford to lose anyone who wants to give you money.
Here are a few things to look for:
- Review your web traffic reports and conversion rates. Identify any steps in your processes that tend to lose people.
- Personally observe several people completing transactions on your site and note any areas where they get confused or slow down.
- Have an expert mystery shop your store and identify where you can improve. (I can help you with this, by the way!)
- Talk to your call center staff and see what issues they hear about from customers who call them.
Once you have identified some improvements, drop everything until they are done. Otherwise they are less likely to be implemented. I’ve seen instances where a single small change had a 6-figure impact on revenue.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
November 17, 2008
In the ‘Careful What You Measure, You Just Might Get It’ Department
From the Wall Street Journal, a story about retailers using a combination of time/motion studies and software to squeeze efficiencies out of their staff. Stores Count Seconds to Trim Labor Costs:
Interviews with cashiers at 16 Meijer stores suggest that its system has spurred many to hurry up — and has dialed up stress levels along the way. Mr. Gunther, who is 22 years old, says he recently told a longtime customer that he couldn’t chat with her anymore during checkout because he was being timed. “I was told to get people in and out,” he says. Other cashiers say they avoid eye contact with shoppers and generally hurry along older or infirm customers who might take longer to unload carts and count money.
Efficiency has a lot of value but you have to be careful you aren’t undercutting your ability to deliver the same product or service at an equal or higher level of quality.
It reminds me a bit of Circuit City firing their highest-paid and most experienced sales people to cut costs and then watched their sales weaken just as they headed into our current economic mess. Genius!
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
November 14, 2008
Now is the best time to acquire new members
If you don’t take my word on it, listen to Tony Rossell:
First of all, any change prompts people to look at new opportunities and solutions. We are clearly in the midst of great change as a society.
Secondly, during times of economic uncertainly, people look for an anchor. Professionally associations can be that anchor. Think for a second, if you knew your job was in jeopardy, isn’t one of the first places you would go for help your professional association or network. That is the place to make contacts, go to job boards, attend meetings, and interact on a listserv.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
November 12, 2008
The Bozo Filter
The Well, one of the oldest still running online communities, has a feature called the bozo filter. The bozo filter lets you block comments from specific people so you would not have to read them in the discussion threads. In a self-contained system such as The Well, this could save a lot of aggravation from having to read the postings of someone you had decided was no longer worth the aggravation. It also helped prevent rehashing the same fights over and over again.
The broader online community, dispersed across innumerable blogs, twitter, FaceBook and other sites, has no universal bozo filter. However, you can control who you choose to follow and read.
Review all the sources of information and commentary that you continue to listen to and read. Are they all still providing value to you? Are any worthy of being bozoed and removed from your subscription and alert lists? It’s healthy communication practice to prune your subscription lists periodically. Otherwise, you’ll end up spending most of your time marking things as read and getting little value from it.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
November 11, 2008
Free Webinar Next Week
I am delivering a webinar next Monday at 12 noon eastern that is free with registration. The topic is “Top 10 Quickest Ways to Create Value Online” and is being hosted as part of the Avectra Academy. The content is tailored for membership organizations.
This is a great opportunity to pick up a few practical ideas with which to enhance the value of your site before the year is over. Sign up today!
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
November 6, 2008
Online Career Centers in the Current Economy: Huge Opportunity to Offer New Value
The employment market is dramatically changing as the drumbeat of layoffs and a shrinking economy continue. The potential value of online career centers is, counter-intuitively, skyrocketing at the same time. Here is why:
- Employers may have fewer positions available but the ones they do have open are likely to be extremely important;
- Employers will have to sift through a much greater number of applicants for each position;
- There is going to be an influx of new job seekers who are highly qualified without recent experience in job hunting.
Online career centers have greater value for both the employers and seekers in this market. Think about what additional value you can offer to each.
Can you help employers to more easily sift through a large number of applicants to find the hidden gems?
Can you help the newly unemployed to present themselves in the best light?
Can you offer special services to senior executives and the recruiters looking to cherry pick the best talent in this market?
You get the idea.
The career centers that offer the most value now will be the ones that surge forward with the most energy when the economy inevitably improves and organizations begin hiring in much greater numbers. What are you doing to be ready?
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | 2 Comments
November 5, 2008
Innovating on the Demand Side
Nick Carr makes a great point today about making sure you look at new outcomes you can achieve with new technology rather than simply getting more efficient at what you already do: The new economics of computing.
The title of this post comes from Peter Drucker who called innovations that enable new value for your customers as demand innovation. Supply innovation is all about creating efficiencies for value you already provide.
Permanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Comment
+1 (410) 742-9088 | david@highcontext.com
Copyright © 2009 High Context Consulting
Privacy Policy: HCC will never share your information with anyone without your permission.