Tuesday, April 15, 2008

"You know you have a bad web site / phone system when..."

...people have to do a Google search to find your contact information."

Don't laugh, it just happened to me. I had to fax a medical examination form to my daughter's pediatrician. The office doesn't open until 8:30, and I wanted to leave my house by 8 am. No one was there to answer the phone and give me the fax, and when I called, all I got was the after-hours message, but no announcement of their fax number. I pressed the option to speak with a live person, but after ten minutes gave up.

I googled the office name, and found several listings. One was the "official" site for the office, but it had no fax number.

Finally, I located another listing, not the official one, but a physician directory, and found their fax.

What's the moral? Check your web pages and phone systems. Try to figure out what information most callers will need (that is, apply the 80-20 rule). Try to make that information available.

If people have to Google to find your information, there's a problem in how you're presenting it.

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