1to1 Magazine
Newsletters
Web Exclusives
Webinars & White Papers
Events
Resources
Online Issues Still Pervade
Web users have short attention spans. Frustrate them with an awkward interface and they'll be gone in seconds.
This is common knowledge, however, according to Tealeaf’s 2008 Online Transactions Survey of more than 2,000 adults, the proportion who experience problems during e-transactions remains high—at nearly 87 percent. And 41 percent of people who experience problems said they would abandon the site or switch to the competitor.
I spoke with Geoff Galat, vice president of marketing and product strategy at Tealeaf, last week. He said the kinds of issues that are still causing shoppers to abandon sites include difficulty navigating (41 percent), receiving an error message (36 percent), difficulty logging in (30 percent), confusing information (30 percent), being stuck in an endless loop (26 percent), the search functionality didn’t work (21 percent), and automatically being kicked off the site (21 percent).
Not only are these issues frustrating customers, but the immediate business impact is devastating. Galat said they represent $57 billion in lost revenue.
The solutions are what Galat refers to as “bread and butter” types of things—fixes that would deliver a better experience and reap the dollars. In most cases, connecting the dots between online and offline, offering self service, empowering the contact center, and obtaining complete visibility into customers’ online behaviors can offer the resolution companies desperately need.
Galat said businesses need to understand the far-reaching implications of this and equip themselves better. “The thing that surprised me the most is the continuous pervasiveness of the problems,” Galat said. “We’re 14 years into ecommerce. Why are we not able to deliver a better experience after 14 years?”
Leave a comment