When the weather is nice, a lot of retail stores and restaurants leave their doors propped open. I’ve never asked anyone why they do this, but I imagine the idea is to make the venue look more inviting so that more customers walk inside. But does leaving a door open actually increase foot traffic and sales? I don’t know.

It’s certainly an easy experiment to try, although not entirely free of costs: an unrestricted entryway is bound to drive up air conditioning usage and let a few bugs in. I would be very curious to see how the open door compares to other tactics — especially the use of outdoor signage that ties into specific seasons and weather conditions — when it comes to increasing sales.

A friend of mine held a garage sale recently. Like many people, he put an ad for it on Craigslist. This makes me wonder: would the results be better if he advertised it on a site like Freecycle too? Of course, Freecycle is designed for giving things away for free, rather than selling them. But I get the feeling its audience is much more responsive than the people who visit Craigslist.

However, if you post a garage sale on Freecycle, wouldn’t you have to give out all the items for free? I don’t think so. Just make some portion of the products free, list those on Freecycle, and then say that you have other items available for purchase too. In essence, you’re taking the same approach as a retail chain. By making some of the items a loss leader or using them as a free giveaway, you attract a larger audience, and thus get the opportunity to sell more products.

My company recently changed email providers, and we ran into some hiccups during the initial setup process. The issues arose outside of the email provider’s product and definitely weren’t their fault. However, they could have made the migration process a lot easier by providing tools to help us test the new setup. What’s more, the tools I ended up using to troubleshoot and resolve the problem are available on the web at no charge.

Even though the problem and solution were beyond the email vendor’s control, they could have saved us a lot of hassle by simply linking to those tools. The tools reside on third-party websites and provide the desired testing functionality at no charge. Aside from checking the list periodically to make sure the sites still exist, this would involve virtually zero work on the vendor’s part. In turn, customers would save hours of work trying to locate those tools on their own.

So, as you look at ways to make your new customer setup easier or to reduce support costs for new and long-time customers alike, think about creating a resource list like I described. Granted, you can’t control the content on those outside sites, and some might even be showing ads for your competitors. But the benefits to your customers — in terms of faster problem resolution and increased satisfaction — should more than outweigh any downsides.

Despite all the talk about listening to customer feedback, the features that paying customers use most are often the most stagnant parts of any technology product. While these core features languish, other aspects of the product benefit from fresh design thinking and vastly better usability.

What separates the forgotten features from the ones that get all the design attention? Sometimes it’s as simple as whether a given feature comes in handy during demos and sales meetings. In other words, if the feature (or potential feature) helps wow prospects and bring in new customers, it’s bound to become a favorite of the sales team. This trickles down to the development side, and that feature gets lots of attention.

The sales team can be very powerful in some organizations, even to the point where salespeople basically dictate the design decisions. This strategy may be very effective in the short run. But I wonder what impact it has after the gloss wears off, when customers have to live with the product on a daily basis — including all the unappreciated features that nobody ever asks about during a demo.

When booking a hotel room in a city that you’ve never visited before, you can encounter many types of sticker shock. The price may be very high, the room may be small, and the only bed available may be a double. To you, these issues might be significant. But to someone who travels there a lot, the same attributes could be perfectly acceptable.

Clearly, the difference in perceptions is driven by familiarity and context. If you already know that 75% of the hotel rooms in the city are small and overpriced, you’ll be able to make a smart decision based on the available options. But someone lacking this information might be too annoyed to ever complete the transaction.

What’s the solution? Hotel booking websites need to provide more info about typical rooms and rates. For instance, on the search results page, they might show the average price, bed type, and room size for hotels in that city. Or, next to each listing, they could display icons that indicate how the room’s attributes compare to the average room in that market.

The same approach can be extended to air travel (think about the average length of flights, not just price) and many other businesses. In each case, the idea is to help users place the available choices in context, so they’ll understand what a “good” deal looks like. Do this properly, and more people will stick with your site and convert into paying customers.

Many stores seem to be including coupons on their receipts these days. The goal, of course, is getting shoppers to return during the next few weeks so they’ll buy more products. Typically, these coupons take the form of “Get $5 off your next purchase of $30 or more”, or something like that. However, I saw a coupon offer last weekend that puzzled me. From what I could understand, you had to bring in the coupon during your next visit, and then spend like $25. After that, they would give you a $5 off coupon, but you couldn’t use it until the following visit. In other words, you had to remember to bring in the offer details during your next trip, and then keep the coupon to use for the next trip after that.

This type of offer is far too complicated. People like instant gratification, and like to see direct rewards when they take the action you requested. Unless there are big dollar amounts involved, a multi-step discount offer will probably have very low redemption rates. Who knows, maybe that’s what the store wanted: shoppers return more often but forget to ever complete the coupon offer. But if your goal is to actually get people to come back, use the coupons, and spend more money, it pays to design straightforward offers that people can understand.

In most cases, the smart approach is to give people a discount on their next visit, rather than making them jump through numerous hoops or requiring them to return two or three times. But wait, don’t we want them to keep coming back? Of course. The solution is to keep incentivizing them with new offers for each return trip, or a program based on aggregate purchases over time. Just don’t confuse first-time shoppers or those who only visit occasionally by presenting anything too complex. Once you’ve gotten them in the store a few times, then you can try out more elaborate promotions that go beyond the next visit.

On Saturday, my wife and I decided to try out the new location of our favorite breakfast place, which just opened a few weeks ago. As we placed our orders, the waitress mentioned that we could swap out the usual toast or pancakes for an order of french toast. I haven’t had french toast in a while, so my wife and I both took her up on the offer.

All was fine and good until the bill showed up. They charged extra for both orders of french toast. I told the server this didn’t seem right, since french toast was presented as one option among several, rather than an extra-cost item. She refunded the additional cost, and now I’ve learned not to trust any substitutions the server recommends without confirming the cost upfront.

This experience points to a bigger issue. Namely, whenever you present customers with a series of options, you have a duty to inform them if certain options are going to impact the cost. This is quite easy when you’re talking about online stores, but gets more challenging with local stores and restaurants where orders may be taken verbally.

My advice is this: if the proposed option or substitution involves an extra cost, make sure the customer knows about it upfront. This is good business even if the customer asks for that item on their own, without you ever having mentioned it. By outlining the costs upfront, everyone is happier when the bill arrives — and you won’t get stuck with angry people who think you misled them into choosing the priciest option.

Have you ever completed a task on a website and tried to view the updated information, only to find there’s no record of the changes you just made? This happened to me with an airline reservation: after I selected my seats, it said the changes were confirmed. However, when I viewed the itinerary right after that, it still showed the old seats. After a call to customer service, I learned that it may take an unknown amount of time before seat changes are reflected on the website.

I’m sure there are technical reasons why certain types of data take longer to update than others. That’s fine, but you need to let customers know what to expect. Something like this would work nicely: “Your new seats have been saved, and will be shown on the website within 15 minutes. Please wait 15 minutes before trying to view or change your seats again.” Without the benefit of this guidance, customers will keep refreshing the page, or they’ll try the transaction over and over again, or they’ll tie up your call center with questions. By providing the right timeline upfront, you’ll give people peace of mind and lower your customer service costs at the same time.

Between birthdays and family visiting the city, I’ve had the good fortune of eating at the same amazing Italian restaurant twice in the past ten days. The first time we ate there, our meal included a surprise pre-appetizer snack, plus an after-dinner drink — all at no charge. Obviously, we were surprised and delighted, as the saying goes. But something interesting happened the second time. Since we expected to get the same freebies from our earlier visit, the delivery of these complimentary tidbits merely met our expectations, instead of exceeding them.

How do you fight people’s natural tendency to take the good things for granted? One approach is to keep them guessing. For instance, instead of always having the free appetizer or dessert, a restaurant might alternate between the following:

– Free side dish that’s not on the menu
– Complimentary bottle of house wine
– 25% off the check, no strings attached
– Coffee with the chef
– Limo drives you to your next destination

Obviously, it wouldn’t be cost effective to do these every night. But you should still make an effort to introduce some variety and randomness into the little bonuses that you use to surprise customers. By leaving them guessing about what comes next, you’ll help customers realize that your restaurant (or whatever business you’re in) cares about delivering a unique experience that’s a little bit different every time.

In Chicago, the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chicago Avenue attracts an incredible number of tourists. It’s home to the famous old water tower that survived the great fire, with lots of stores and other attractions nearby. And on the southeast corner of the street, there’s a Walgreen’s. It’s a really ugly, old store — and somehow doesn’t even have any windows. Overall, it gives the many passers-by a poor impression of Walgreen’s, which is especially ironic since the company is headquartered near Chicago.

The shoddy Walgreen’s store in a high-profile location is a reminder that “flagship” stores can be created by things outside the retailer’s control. Sure, the typical flagship is planned in advance, and designed to be a showcase for the brand in a location where lots of people will see it. But sometimes, the area around a regular store grows into prime real estate. And when that occurs, it pays to renovate the store so it looks and feels like a flagship you’ll be proud of. Otherwise, you’ll be missing the chance to build brand equity and drive future store visits among the large crowds of people that walk by every day.