Are Customers reading your Website?

[Ziggy]

Frustrating observation and question rant for those with websites.

Is it just me or has anyone noticed since the smart phone error, people have forgotten how to read and email?

I take time on my site, provide all the information I can, in as easy a way to navigate as I can.
What I do.
What I don’t do.
Rates.
Locations I pickup.
Mail In info and forms.

In the past, customers seemed to read, know the basics, and email or call.

Now, it seems they are just seeing the number and calling, asking all the info that is already on the site.
Frustrating in the wasted time department.

Seems I’m noticing an annoying trend as I ask them if they found me on the internet and got my # from my site …. “yeah, but I didn’t go on it”.

My gut is telling me they are no longer on desktops, but are simply looking at a small smart phone, finding you in a search then dialing the number.
The smallness of the phone, zooming in to read, navigate the menu, I think, now is too much work.
Not that I’m complaining when the phone rings, that’s a good thing. They found me, I’m ranking good.
The negative is the time wasted building the site and putting everything they need in, only to be circumvented by a smart phone and the “I want it now” mindset.
Also, not reading the site results in getting calls that end in a dead end, exp:”I need a knife rotation service for my restaurant in North Jersey, do you come up here and how much?”.
A quick read of the menu gives you all the info and saves you a call.

This is a very recent trend that I can only attribute to smart phones, their lag time, small screens and navigational limitations. They search, maybe by voice, than see and read the #, and go from there.
Anyone else running into this?

I’m in the process of reworking the site, almost done, but now am contemplating figuring out how to build another, more responsive site that realigns and arranges, resizes according to screen sizes in HTML5 so to be ready for the future.
My gut is saying the desktop is going the way of the dodo and we may be looking at a world where tablets and phones rule the roost. There will be a desktop in the house, but most internet is gonna end up being driven from the couch and coffee shop.

my 2 cents

[Leo Barr]

The site redesign sounds a good idea to accommodate iOS users I wonder if the people that are phoning are just technophobes afraid of the net and viruses since it sounds as if non iOS users are open to attack and for the rest you are probable right people today actually have more time in general but all this is lost to the TV set . I suppose the site needs to be like a newspaper article everything in the heading .
I find spending time investigating sites is way more entertaining that TV and if it don’t want to read it all just then the link goes to my reading list that can be referred to without an internet connection.
I think there are a lot of people to there that do not know how to use the tech they have. I have a scannable section on my flier so the info goes strait into the app but many simple do not have the free app .
I do not really understand why people bother with tech if they are too lazy to master it .
I think you are experiencing backward ignorant people at least when they call you they are paying for that privilege rather than you .
It is frustrating when building a site is very time consuming although Adobe have a subscription based web site builder which is of the drag & drop variety I am not sure whether you can buy monthly modules so that it is possible to just pay for month when needed.
Good luck with it in any case .

[Eamon Mc Gowan]

Very Interesting observation! Kind of ironic really? For those old enough to have sold services during the day of “Yellow Pages”? A business was in trouble if they did not have an ad? And was in for trouble if they had an ad? No one would know about you if you didn’t have an ad and you answered questions all day if you did? The phone companies charge big bucks for ad inches so most tried to squeeze by with their logo, name and phone number?
Then enter the age of internet and everyone geared up with web sites and waited for the orders to come in? And for a lot of folks that really worked out well, others not so much?
I have found most people to be either to lazy or busy to research? Most want answers to what seem like dumb questions right now.
My back round has been sales. Inside, outside, wholesale, retail you name it? It seemed I would spend my whole day day weeding through people to find the gem? The sale that made the whole day worth while?
Is it possible that with smart phones, hand held devices we are going to take a step back in time? Are we going back to selling our services first? Sounds like customer service is sneaking back in?
Just my thoughts? Not even worth .02 cents really?

[Ziggy]

Just an update.
Over the past few months some observations.
Aside a handful of readers, and referrals, the majority of new calls and emails never got past the link.
Not even onto the page … I asked them 🙂

“How did you find me?”
“On the internet”
“you mean you were on the site? Did you get all the info you need?”
“Oh, I only emailed or called from the list on Google”

I find this very interesting, they are running a search, seeing the listing and small blurb google puts up and call or email.
No idea of fees, type of work, nothing.
Many times not even location, or where my dropoff is … I don’t have one and its on every page.
Many times requests are for things not listed anywhere on the site.

So they are seeing only this:

Professional Knife Sharpening Service Local NJ Mail Order USA
http://www.zbsharpening.com/‎
Professional Knife Sharpening Services for all Knives. Local Knife Sharpening Service in Central New Jersey. Mail Order or Mail In from any State.

or this:

ZB Sharpening
http://www.zbsharpening.com
3 Google reviews · Google+ page
Hillsborough Township, NJ
(908) 635-2748

The second being a google local listing for the area, the first being a general search.
Each page has an email link so they get as far as the index or whatever landing page they hit.

Not to say the info is for nothing.
Number 1, content helps ranking.
Number 2, Once a customer, THEN they read the site after I send some info.

Just finding it odd how consistent it is that when asked, they have not really looked at the site.
Its like they have zero time.

[Ken Buzbee]

Sorry you’re finding this trend frustrating. I get that.

One caveat I’ll put out there if as you redo your web site….

I’m on the other end. I use IOS exclusively, for everything “internet”. Nothing annoys me more than sites that deduce I’m on IOS and assume I want a scaled down “mobile” page. My iPad is wifi, not cellular and I hate the dumbed down simple pages they default to.

Most aren’t too bad. You get a “show full site” or whatever pick at the bottom of the page. Sometimes it’s harder to find and occasionally you need to choose that for every page you view. I took me forever to figure out how to view the regular page on spyderco.com

I would love these sites to have a default setting you could choose so I never have to see those “mobile” pages again.

Just my $.02

Ken

[Leo Barr]

I often view the site on my iPad most of it seems to function in the same way as on the safari browser on my mac I must admit I have not looked at the site on an iPhone that would be tedious .

[Mikedoh]

Like you, Ken, I do most internet browsing on wifi ipad. And prefer the normal web page view. Maybe apple will give an option in an iOS upgrade to choose a default view.

[Ken Buzbee]

Like you, Ken, I do most internet browsing on wifi ipad. And prefer the normal web page view. Maybe apple will give an option in an iOS upgrade to choose a default view.

Maybe but from what I understand, this behavior is something coded on the web page. I guess they could do it in IOS by masking that it is IOS somehow. Have it return Tiger or Mavericks or something? But that would create a host of other problems, I’m sure.

Ken

[Ken Buzbee]

Like you, Ken, I do most internet browsing on wifi ipad. And prefer the normal web page view. Maybe apple will give an option in an iOS upgrade to choose a default view.

I’m so glad you brought this up! I had meant to check something. I was never able to add an avatar with my iPad 1. I was going to try again when we got our new iPad Mini 2s but I never did.

IT WORKS!

Ken

[Leo Barr]

This is how it looks on my iPad I prefer to use safari than tapatalk it seems very similar to what I see on my mac

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[Ziggy]

There might be a slight misunderstanding going on.
Its not how it looks on the device, as they are not looking at the site.

After asking them, they never go to the page, or just go to the page that led them there and snag the # or email.

I’m happy they are finding and I’m ranking, but the frustration is the questions that are easily answered if they actually read the site.

They are snagging the email or phone off the search, not the site.
I can see the devices when they email me.
They go no further than the search results.

Point is, its a “I want it now” mentality.
Almost feel that the info on the site is moot. Aside the SEO that makes the ranking.
They want sharpening, see the first results, and call or email instead of reading the site or what you do.

Only a drag as far as email, you either rewrite the info they request, or give them links to the pages they never read that answer the questions.

Maybe I’m bitching about nothing, but just observing a shift in how people browse.

[wickededge]

Thanks for posting about this! Some people may assume that the search engine has done enough work and found the correct match so they just go straight for the phone number or email on the results listing. Some people search while they’re driving, or don’t want to spend time trying to find info on a site because they’re conditioned by visiting so many poorly designed sites that make it hard to find the info they’re looking for quickly. I wonder if you can get some more of the most pertinent info onto the search engine results page. We’re looking into a responsive site or mobile version for the WE site, still trying to figure out what’s best because so many of our visitors are on mobile browsers now. Definitely need to make sure the most important stuff comes up first!

-Clay

[Ken Buzbee]

There might be a slight misunderstanding going on.
Its not how it looks on the device, as they are not looking at the site.

After asking them, they never go to the page, or just go to the page that led them there and snag the # or email.

I’m happy they are finding and I’m ranking, but the frustration is the questions that are easily answered if they actually read the site.

Not a misunderstanding, just a side bar conversation (or 3 😉 ) Sorry about that…. It happens…

Okay, so you’ve seen a shift in how much work customers are willing to do to investigate your services and you’re unhappy that their unwillingness to do this work is creating additional work for you. Yes?

I was raised on customer service having two components:

1. The customer is always right
2. If you truly believe the customer is wrong, re-read #1

It’s really that simple.

Yes, you did all this work creating your website and I get you want them to utilize this work and streamline your business model. But if that’s not how THEY want to investigate your service you have a couple options:

1. Work with them the way they want to and be happy they are interested in your business (working the way they want to and being unhappy about it doesn’t help you or them)

2. Refuse to work with them their way and be happy with the results, which MAY include reduced business and you’ll have to be okay with that. Again, it doesn’t help you or them to conduct your business the way you want to but be unhappy if your potential customers seek other solutions.

As a customer, I’ve dealt with both business models. I’ve been thrilled when a business will go out of their way to do something simply because I requested it. And I’ve been annoyed when I get a negative response (or worse, no response at all)

In fact, I have such a situation right now. A company offered a significant discount on a program I’m interested in but they don’t offer a direct way to run it on the platform I want to use. I wrote to them about it and they’ve ignored my emails. Now, I really want this program and I know I could probably find a way to make it work but their complete lack of response has soured me to the whole idea and the 66% savings means less to me than the loss of a sale means to them. Or so it appears.

I don’t know if any of this is helpful? I hope you can find a place where you are happy, your customers are happy and your business is thriving. It doesn’t occur as often as it seems it should.

Ken

[Ziggy]

Thanks for the input fellas!
The key I believe is that the times they are a changing, and I need to figure out the best way to keep up with it.

With handheld devices booming, I’m thinking its more visual and not readable to the customer.
HOWEVER, the search engines rely on words, not images, so we got a little battle going on.
This is a new topic that is going on with developers, SEO vs Design.
In the end, Google is going to win over design, as that’s what puts the customers in the seat.
This is very similar to what happened to flash sites.
Used to be Flash was used everywhere … until they realized Google doesn’t read flash and so doesn’t attract customers with a search.
Now, you rarely see Flash used. Maybe as a showcase for an item, but not for building entire sites.

The responsive sites I believe will take over, as the rate of folks sitting at a desktop drops.
So depending on the size of the device, I’m assuming one will need to pack as big of a punch in as few words as possible in your opening statement.

One hurdle I see is diversified sites, say you not only sharpen knives, but scissors, tools, clippers etc.
Too much information to pack into an index page.

I think its going to be important to produce pages with specific topics that the engines will find.
Ex: A person is searching for scissor sharpening. I’ll need to develop a scissor page that will rank in the engines.

Same as if you target restaurants for knives or home owners. 2 different audiences.

Gonna be interesting to say the least as things are moving very fast from what I’ve been seeing.

[Ziggy]

Thanks for posting about this! Some people may assume that the search engine has done enough work and found the correct match so they just go straight for the phone number or email on the results listing.

Exactly!
My restaurant knife sharpening page currently says I don’t do knife exchanges.
So what do I get calls for … Knife Exchanges! 🙂

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