The Top Seven Strategies for Website Success
4. Does your Website provide continuing added value for existing customers?Most site owners focus on acquiring new customers, and fail to maximize the opportunities to support and service existing ones.
These include password-protected areas where your clients can follow the progress of their projects, share documents with you, etc. Personalization and pre-populated forms (i.e. which are automatically filled in with the customer’s details) help to create a feeling of value, and save time for your visitors.
Check the average response time for a contact from your Website. One of the top complaints about major company sites is that e-mails are not answered in a timely (hopefully 24 hours or less) manner.
5. Does your Website support your internal operations and employee needs?
This question relates to whether you’re making the best use of all available technologies, and integrating them with your online operations.
Example applications to consider include:
- Instant messaging, fast becoming a serious business tool
- Knowledge bases – continually updated databases that can provide automated customer support on a 24/7 basis
- Streaming media, perhaps for just-in-time training or on-the-spot manuals for your operatives
- Intranets and extranets, which are really just fancy names for password-protected employee and client areas
