WordPress Impressions, Pesky Customers and the Value of Listening

Well, its about time. I’ve *finally* finished the migration of the old site over to this WordPress platform…and I couldn’t be more delighted!..(Your delight, of course, will be the final word).
First off, I have to give all the credit for the design and implemetation to Michael Pollock @ Solostream Web Studio. Michael is an absolutely terrific WordPress maven but even more, he is very adept at translating (my) nebulous ideas into reality, all the while exhibiting extraordinary patience and counsel.

And that is not just an empty wave of the hand. It is one thing to promise outstanding service; it is quite another to deliver it per the customer’s expectations; the customer’s expectations being predicated upon either the promises and marketing of a particular service/product or upon their own misguided notions..or a combination of both.

In any case anyone involved in commerce has to expect and embrace the fact that, first and formost, they must readily abstract into the customer’s world and expectations. The customer’s expectations many times being a direct product of the marketing message.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been researching Shopping Carts on the show. At practically every site I visited, I encountered the usual easy-friendly-no fuss marketing message. Messages aimed to be as all-inclusive as possible and all transparently focused on one thing: getting the sale. The rationale of the cart providers being that since there are so many variables involved, why not make the broadest possible statement and then let the customer adjust their expectations per customer support after the sale. This attitude is so commonplace, so ingrained that one is almost tempted to accept the fact and move on.
For instance: Volusion. Even though I’m using their cart on my e-commerce site and give it very high marks, I was nevertheless concerned that for a particular class of customers (eBay Store refugees) there was no particular information available in Volusion’s marketing that addressed their needs.

I called Volusion and made the point that this eBay segment represented a considerable number of potential customers and that wouldn’t be a good idea to focus some part of Volusion’s marketing towards them….the answer I got was, in short, “we already get alot of eBay customers”. This attitude spells trouble in the long term; the type of trouble that comes from a supercillious attitude that persumes to dictate to the market and not to listening to the market.

Simply put; your marketing message should reflect an on-going dialogue with both your current and prospective customers. Moreso than focus groups, your day-to-day interaction with your customers is writing your message, if you’ll only listen.

Once again, thanks to Michael Pollock for all of his work…and any short-comings on the site are a reflection of me not following instructions.