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You can't come back to this ecommerce site!I had an interesting experience yesterday with an online bookstore that shall go nameless. No, it wasn't Amazon, it was another dealer who is less well known. I won't mention the name because it isn't my desire to embarrass anyone, just to raise issues that might be relevant to your own technology investment and planning. I'm also protecting the innocent, namely me. That said, on with the story. About a month ago, I ordered a book from this company. At the time, they gave me two options for how to treat my visit. It could be as a "one time only" user, or I could set up an account and password. I wasn't in the mood to set up my 256th online user name and password combination, so I declined. I actually was impressed that they gave me that option. I did give them my email address so they could confirm the order, and I eventually received the book. Yesterday, I found a book on this site that I had not found elsewhere. It again asked me if I wanted to be a first time visitor or set up an account. Figuring that buying two books from one site within a month was a pattern, I clicked on "account." I then entered my email address and my password. It wouldn't accept it. It said I had entered the wrong password. This was interesting, since I had never given these folks a password. But it gave me the option of having them email the password on file to me so I clicked. After thinking for a few minutes, it came back and said it didn't have my email account on file. Now it was getting interesting. They tell me my password is invalid, but then they don't have me on file. Is it obvious only to me that this doesn't make any sense? At this point in time, I was curious. I would normally have given up by now, but they did provide an 800 number on the screen, and I really wanted the book. So I called. Amazement of amazements, after listening to the usual raft of voicemail menu items, I actually got a live person right away! I explained the problem to him and he found it curious too. He poked around in the system, and figured it out. Apparently, they DO set up an account using your email address, but they effectively LOCK the account, because it is coded as a "one-time-only" user. After the customer service rep explained this to me, I asked him what he could do about it. He didn't seem to have the right answer. "Do you realize, and I'm not trying to beat you up...you're not the programmer...that your company is quite effectively saying to me that I'm not welcome back? You essentially gave me the option, when I bought that first book, of either being able to buy books in the future, or never buying another book from you ever again, using that email address. Of course they didn't say it quite that way, but that is the effect. Do you not see a problem here?" "Well, uh huh," was his response. "Is there anything you can do about this?" I queried. "I obviously could just create another email account, but that seems stupid." He proceeded to try to explain the problem to me again, as if I was just not getting it. To which I interjected, "Hmmm. Your company doesn't appear to want me back because they have a very odd way of handling first time customers. As it happens, I'm a writer, and I can see writing a column about this." "Oh, we can't have that!" he said, with a forced laugh. He then briskly proceeded to fix the problem, which apparently was just a matter of plugging my password into the account record. I was able to order my book, and was on my way, surfing on to other adventures in cyberspace. There are some morals here. 1. Unlike the old days, your programmers could screw up massively, but they still couldn't physically eject the customer from the store, and prevent them from purchasing your products. Now they can. With just one STUPID feature that some knucklehead inserted into the ecommerce program, they managed to turn me away. The only reason I persisted was that I COULD smell a column, and I really wanted that dang book. I'm just not sure you want guys, who drink Diet Coke and eat Twinkies all day, controlling the access that your customers have to your site. Trust me. I DO drink Diet Coke and eat Twinkies all day, and you DON'T want me playing doorman at your store. TEST your site thoroughly. Test every possible scenario. Pay attention to statistics such as when someone abandons a purchase. If visitors ARE getting error messages, why? If you don't have a way of tracking these events, why? Who knows how many customers have been turned away from this site because of this "feature?" Don't be intimidated by your technical staff. This is YOUR business, and you have a right (and responsibility) to challenge them to make sure that you maximize your sales and treat your customers properly. If they can't take the heat, put them in charge of stocking the refrigerator for those that can. 2. When you are interacting with customer service reps, it pays to be a member of the media. While I would be seriously exaggerating to say I'm a journalist, I DO write a column and a few of you DO read it. So, start your own newsletter (or send me an item), and you can say you're a column writer as well. At least in this case, it worked wonders.
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