A quest.
It’s the crux of many a great story. Someone hunting for something and overcoming the odds to get it.
The trials and tribulations of an epic quest are great for intrigue but not so much for your customers. What customer ever regaled their friends with stories of how difficult it was to buy from a business? If they did, it wasn’t in order to impress them.
In today’s world of instant gratification, it just doesn’t happen. Friction often means you lose the sale.
6 Tips to Make Your Business Easier to Buy From
1. Have an online presence
You need a website and the website must have critical information to help the buyer make a decision. This includes:
- information about your business (hours, address, sales, etc)
- information about your product and service
- buying assistance (content that walks people through the process of weighing their options)
- purchasing help (could be an online catalog of your products, a services list, or an online shopping cart so they can purchase straight from your website. The exact type of purchasing assistance depends on what you sell.)
2. Allow them to pay online
If you offer services or products available online, allow them to purchase them online through Pay Pal, bank transfer or credit cards. Ensure it’s a secure payment portal too or Google will doc you.
3. Provide chat
You can save yourself a lot of headache on repeating the same information over and over by using a chat feature on your website.
4. Don’t list social media profiles you’re not on
Don’t list social media icons on your website for sites you’re not active on. Don’t think that you’ll have the designer add them and you’ll get on them “soon.” Wait until you are and then add them. There’s nothing more annoying for a customer who wants to connect socially only to find your profile hasn’t seen action since 2013. They’ll assume you’re out of business.
5. Answer the phone
There are some people who still want to do business over the phone. Let them. And don’t make them go through a 5-minute long choice of options.
6. Adhere to their preferences
If someone calls you, don’t email them back and vice versa. People generally use their preferred method of communication to reach out to you. You should return the favor by doing the same unless instructed otherwise. However, if they call and ask for an email address, things are obviously not clear enough on your site since they are telling you they’d prefer to communicate very email but couldn’t find the address.
Is your company easy to do business with? Why do you think so?
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