Once again, I am focusing on a consumer website which had so much potential but failed to deliver. I was looking to take my daughters to a tea room this weekend and there was a quaint shop down the street I wanted to try. I went to their web page to find out what time they opened. After 15 minutes of wandering the site, I could not find their hours listed anywhere.
They had obviously spent quite a lot on their web site - great design and lots of information about specialty teas and events. But no hours. I had to resort to picking up the phone and listening to a voice recording to tell me that they were not open on Sunday afternoons (which is when I wanted to go). Lesson 101 in web design - make the most important information easy to find.
Upon further searching on Google, there was a post that the store had closed. What was odd is that their website is still up and running, and their phone is still active, but now there are people who have claimed it to be closed. So, I could either try calling during business hours or potentially waste my time driving over there and risk it being closed.
Now, this leads to a different dilema that I have always been hesitant about - the information accuracy of the web. If a site is geared to accept user reviews and not moderate it, which is a lot of work and goes against the concept of Web 2.0, the site will become just more noise in the search engine results page that we have to wade through. I always check the dates of the posting to see how relevant the comment is, perhaps the company has moved and started new or addressed older issues, but reading through postings meant to harm or mis-inform is no fun.
Some advise, if you choose to accept this mission; keep the most relevant information top of the page and monitor your brand sentiment out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment