Thanks for joining me again for this series! One more note about your website before we move on. To enable faster loading, make sure you designate the size of your graphics in your code and create alternate text (the alt tag) for those who don’t feel like waiting for your page to load. Now we move on to just plain good customer service: 4. Quick response when people request information, report trouble: This one pretty much speaks for itself, but it is worth mentioning a couple of things about this. Try, if you can, to check your email at least 3 times a day. Many people are shut-ins or retired or homeworkers, and they expect a quick response to their questions or complaints. If your Internet Provider can give you access to Auto-Responders, these are fairly successful in giving your website visitors a quick response that says you've received their email and will respond as soon as possible, but sometimes these auto-responders annoy people more than they put them at ease. Human beings always prefer to talk to human beings. This is especially evident in the fact that people still consider voice mail and answering machines a necessary evil. Some may see your auto-responder as just that. Auto-responders are more effectively used when someone wants some detailed information and wants it immediately. If at all possible, ask for their phone number so you can call them and give them answers live. I cannot count how many times I have answered our corporate line, only to hear a big sigh of relief on the other end, followed by the person saying, "Wow, I got a live voice!" Many people prefer not to be called on the phone, so give them a choice when they write to you. Some are paranoid that you're going to try to sell them something. If they email and expect email in return, make it polite, prompt, and helpful. If you are not sure what they're asking, don't try to create an answer from incomplete facts from them. Ask them to clarify by return email so that you may answer their question more effectively. Customer service, customer service, and more customer service will make you stand heads above your competition. Try a little experiment with some of your competitors. See how long or in what way they respond to a question about their site. As far as reporting trouble on your web page operations, this was mentioned in Element 3 above. If they are reporting trouble about a product or service you sold them, offer them choices of restitution. Most people will not want to return something if it can be resolved over the phone. Give them a liberal guarantee, like 90 days or something. They'll appreciate this more than you'll know. 5. Is useful: There is nothing worse than going to a website that you expected to find "content" in, only to discover it is just a bunch of garbage sales talk or just plain trash. This is usually the case when a company does not understand how to sell on the web or is just plain too lazy to plan their content carefully. A website should be useful to the target market of buyers you are aiming at. If you are selling widgets, have a section of FREE information just on everything you can find out about the history of widgets and all aspects of using them. If you provide a service, have some information that is useful background for the buyers of that service. Sit down with a pad of paper before you ever design your website, and make a hand-written plan of how you want it to look. Include the elements described in this article. Giving something free on your site, like free information that is really worth something, will make them feel more at ease about purchasing whatever it is you are selling. If a website only sells something but gives nothing in return, it's just plain garbage. Many MLM websites are like this. (no offense to MLMs!) In contrast, one couple decided they really loved peacocks, so they created a website based only on information about peacocks, such as how to raise them. The website started out as just a hobby type of site, but the end result now is that they sell more peacocks than they can breed. They are sold out as soon as babies are born. The other end result is that the CEO of the company wrote a full-length book just on peacocks and sells that on his website now, too. Another example was a man who decided he was a pretty knowledgeable government contractor. He wrote articles on his site about how to have the upper hand when it comes to being awarded government contracts. His site is now selling a lot of information, as well as providing it free. His company was recently purchased by another company and sells books, CD-ROMs, and all sorts of other information about this subject. These websites, in contrast to those websites you see that just look like sales letters, are useful. They serve a purpose that keeps people coming back. No one wants to see a whole website dedicated to "I love my company and this is what we do". They only care what you do if you dedicate one page to "About Us", and the rest of the website keeps their attention with useful information. Plan your website around your expertise on a given subject. Eat, breathe and sleep that subject. Learn everything you possibly can about the subject, and write about it. Gone are the days that you can have a website that just sells information. You've got to "give away" some of your expertise, too, or your website hits are going to be pitiful at best. You'll be lucky to get 10 people a day to come and look. Enough said on this little pet peeve of mine!