Here’s a couple of ways companies lose potential customers very quickly online:
- Refuse to give quotes online — require that people call a salesperson to get more information, thereby negating the convenience of researching online.
- Even better — ask a person all the information about a system or service, and after they’ve filled out two or three forms to give the info, ask for an email address to send a quote to, which basically means “we’re going to spam you if you want a quote or more information.”
- All-Flash sites.
- Browser identification. “We’re sorry, you’re using an unsupported browser.” Screw you, support my browser or I’ll do business with the companies that will.
Zonker — So true. Jon Silvers, lead marekting guy over at Atlassian, recently posted on how they use transparency in sales (i.e., visible price list, one size fits all pricing, etc.). Worth checking out: http://blogbitesman.net/2007/03/12/transparent-marketing-12-step-program/