If you tell a customer that you’ll be sending a confirmation email, they’ll probably expect to get it right after the transaction is completed. After all, that’s how Amazon and other big sites do it: submit your order, and they send you a confirmation within 15 minutes or so.

However, I ran into one example where the site promised a confirmation, and days went by with no follow-up. Perhaps their system generates the confirmation message after some other event happens, like shipping a physical product or welcome packet. Whatever the cause, they need to set expectations properly, rather than leave customers guessing.

When people hear “confirmation email”, they assume it means a message is coming right away. So if your systems or processes can’t meet that expectation, just say so upfront. All it takes is a little bit of text on the thank you screen, e.g. “We’ll send you a confirmation email in 24-48 hours.” By providing this extra level of detail, you’re telling people what to expect — and they won’t think you screwed up by failing to send the confirmation instantly.

While signing up for a frequent flyer program, I ran into a confusing question. I wanted to opt-out of all the marketing communications, like emails and telemarketing calls. For email, it was easy: just change each email option to No. But when I got to the telemarketing section, I was baffled.

Here’s the text that appeared in the telemarketing area, after a long paragraph explaining what sort of telemarketing they conduct: “I do not want to receive special offers via telephone”. Ok, so I choose Yes, and that means that yes, I don’t want the offers. But right below that, I see the options for email, which I already marked No. Shouldn’t my choices look the same all the way down, either Yes or No for each section? Even after reading the telemarketing options a half dozen times, something didn’t feel right, so I ended up calling the company so they could make the changes on their end.

There are two takeaways here. First, when designing any sort of settings screen, you should phrase all the questions and settings the same way. Customers should be able to glance at the list and feel confident that they’ve turned any given option — or a whole group of options — on or off like they wanted to.

Second, avoid phrasing your text with negatives and especially double negatives. It’s a lot better to say “Do you want to receive email offers?” with a simple Yes/No choice, instead of something like “I do not wish to receive email communications” or “I wish to opt-out of email offers”. Sentence constructions involving “not” and “opt-out” take more time for people to process. By getting rid of these confusing phrasings, people will have an easier time choosing the settings they want, which means fewer complaints and lower customer service costs for you.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on upgrading the services we receive from one of our key vendors. But after learning that what we needed would cost far more than our budget, I began looking for a new vendor. Several times during this process, I stated very clearly to the existing supplier that we’re thinking of moving to a different provider. Aside from reminding me to give them notice prior to cancellation, they made no attempt to retain our account.

This is rather shocking to me. When a customer tells you they are looking elsewhere, and they give you a credible reason for it, you should respond by asking one simple question: “How can we keep your business?” Or you might phrase it a bit differently, e.g. “Is there anything we can do that would make you stay with us?” Most customers will respond honestly to questions like these, since all else equal, it’s easier to stay with the current provider than switching to a new one.

Granted, it may be impossible to meet the customer’s requests, or they may be better served by someone else who has a different business model. But if you don’t ask the question, you’ll never know what they actually wanted. And from the customer’s perspective, if a vendor can’t be bothered to ask why you’re thinking of switching, you’re probably better off without that vendor anyway.

My browser setup is totally vanilla, relying on Firefox and common plugins like Flash. However, I frequently come across websites where the Flash banner ads appear on top of key navigational elements, or the ads expand to cover the page and there’s no way to close them. Sure, there are Firefox extensions that block ads entirely, but most people don’t know how to use them. If my experience is typical, a whole lot of people are getting a poor web experience due to malfunctioning Flash ads.

As a webmaster or site owner, it’s your job to test your site, including any third-party components that you place on it. If you’re using an ad network to fill the ad space, make sure their ads aren’t getting in the way of site navigation, article content, etc. Some ad networks may never test the ads before inserting them into your site. So if you’re not careful, you may end up frustrating your customers and forcing them to go elsewhere. Remember, without a loyal audience, there’s nothing to monetize with ads in the first place.

I’ve had my trusty BlackBerry for almost five years, and it’s starting to show its age. Here are two examples:

– No matter how slowly you roll the trackwheel, it usually moves two positions instead of one.
– Sometimes when I receive a call, the microphone doesn’t work.

But aside from these little quirks, it continues to work great, and the screen and body don’t really show much wear. This makes me wonder: might it be easier to justify replacing a gadget when it looks like hell? Is superior durability of the superficial components actually a hindrance to getting customers to upgrade regularly?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, since in my case, what I really want is an iPhone that’s not stuck on AT&T’s mediocre network. Until something like that comes along, I’m hoping that my BlackBerry keeps up its imperfect yet predictable routine.

When someone gives you a gift card, there are probably two key pieces of information you’ll want to remember. First, where can you use it? That’s easy, since it’s printed on the front or the back of the card itself. Second, how much money is left on the card? That’s a little more tricky, since even if the card is printed with the starting balance, it’s up to you to keep track of the balance over time.

Sure, there are ways of checking the current balance online or by calling a special phone number. But I doubt most people think about doing that before they go shopping. The simple solution is to print a little grid on the back of the card itself. There would be two columns: one for the date and one for the balance, and the first line would be pre-filled with the issue date and starting balance. Then, every time the card is used, customers or store staff could write in the date of each purchase along with the updated balance. It’s a low-tech approach, but should provide a lot of value to customers with almost no incremental cost.

Let’s assume that every minute of talk time costs the phone company some amount of money to provide. In this scenario, they would have a financial incentive to block abusive callers, like the automated messages that peddle car warranties and mortgage refinancing. With access to the call data for millions of customers, surely they could spot the patterns that characterize the spam calls.

However, I’ve never heard of landline or cell phone companies trying to block abusive callers on a systematic basis. This leads me to an interesting theory: Either the phone companies enjoy the extra airtime charges that customers incur from the bogus calls, or the cost of providing those extra minutes of talktime is actually zero after all.

Have you ever tried telling a friend or family member about your idea for a new business? Most likely they shot you down and said it will never work. And if the world contains roughly equal numbers of optimists and pessimists, why is this behavior so dominant?

To answer this question, let’s think about the possible outcomes. Most new businesses fail, so the naysayer will be right maybe 80% of the time. And in the rest of the cases, they have an easy crutch to fall back on. They can just say “I told you what you needed to hear”, thus assigning themselves part of the credit for motivating you to prove them wrong.

In other words, it’s very easy for people to be skeptical and treat new ideas harshly. The way they see it, they can’t lose by being a naysayer. For those of us who actually spend our time implementing new ideas and growing a business, it’s best to recognize this phenomenon when you see it — and just ignore what the naysayers tell you.

A lot of TV shows are set in Seattle. However, most of those shows are actually filmed in Vancouver, BC. And if you’ve ever visited the downtown areas in both cities, it’s pretty obvious why they don’t film anything in Seattle: its downtown core is a dump. Vancouver certainly isn’t perfect, but aesthetically, there’s no comparison.

Thinking about the average TV viewer, they probably have no idea that the “Seattle” on TV is a total fabrication. But TV and movies are all about fantasy, right? While that may be true, I think Seattle gets more of a halo effect from its show business persona than any other place. Things set in New York City are typically filmed there, and the same is true in LA. But Seattle gets the benefit of Vancouver’s vastly more attractive skyline and soaring mountains, which lead to disappointment once you go there and see that Seattle is mostly a dump.

The people who run tourism for the city of Seattle must love the halo effect they get from all the TV shows that supposedly take place there. But I wonder how many visitors get to Seattle and feel a vague sense of disappointment — without knowing that the city they were expecting is actually a few hours up the coast.

It’s rare that I come across a kiosk system that wows me with its simplicity and elegance. But the approach CVS has taken in the store near me is worth noting. Basically, you go up to the kiosk and put your ExtraCare card under the scanner. Then, it prints a coupon based on your purchase history. You don’t even have to press a single button or touch the screen.

Does this approach help them increase sales? Well, I took the coupon the kiosk printed out, and proceeded to buy some products that I would have otherwise purchased on Amazon. That’s a win for CVS, even if they had to provide a substantial discount on the sale. They increase their share of wallet, make me more likely to return, and get valuable behavioral data about my shopping habits.

There’s only one thing I would change in the CVS kiosk implementation. They placed the kiosk near the front of the store, but mounted it like any other display within the aisle itself. It really belongs on an endcap, or on the corner of the aisle but positioned at a 45 degree angle. Also, they might want to add an attract loop showing how much other customers are saving. Either way, they’ve done a nice job with the kiosk program, and I’ll certainly be swiping my card whenever I visit the store.