Are Your Customers Invisible?

My son is compelled to share his insights as he thinks of them. Here was today's: "If vanishing cream really made you vanish, then people playing hide and seek could hide in very obvious places." And I responf as any doting father would: "Uh, yeah. Right." So why do I bring this up? Because too many companies treat Internet marketing as a game of hide and seek with vanishing cream. Their customers are in the most obvious places, but they don't see them. It's not their fault. It's harder to see customers on the Internet, and the very technology we use to reach them often makes them seem invisible.

I talk to a lot of small business owners and nearly every one is proud of their outstanding customer service. They know that they don't have the lowest prices or the biggest selection, but what they do they do very well. They make sure their customers are satisfied.

But what happens to this customer service on the Web? Too often, it disappears. How many small business owners really know how many people come to their Web sites? And how many leave without trying to buy anything? Without contacting the business offline? Without even a second thought that says, "I must remember these guys."

Very few small business owners know any of these things.

Small business owners don't think about the Web site as part of their store. They don't think about customers arriving at their Web site as people who must be served. I think that's because they don't see them. They aren't aware those customers are there. This "customer blindness" isn't different from the way they think about a sign they hang up for their store. Or the weekly circular that they print in the newspaper. Or any other kind of ad. The people looking at that ad aren't customers to be served—they become customers only when they step into the store.

This kind of thinking relegates the Web site into nothing more than an over-wrought Yellow pages ad. Yeah, we have to have one. Yeah, we pay for it. But we don't "serve" those people unless they call us.

I think that small businesses must change this attitude to be successful Web marketers. They must look at their Web site as an extension of their store or other place of business. The people who come to their Web sites must be served. If you pride yourself on customer service, it starts on your Web site.

So how do you "see" those customers? You use Web metrics. You check how many people are coming to your site. You analyze what pages they look at. You count how many call you or contact you from the Web and how many abandon. And you constantly examine how those numbers change every time you change your Web site. Because, increasingly, your Web site is your business. It's not just a billboard.

Well, you get the point. Your customers are all around you, but if you don't know how to find them, they might as well not even be there. Anyway, I have to go. I am getting ready to ask my son what he thinks would happen if I doused someone from Poland with a bottle of Polish remover...