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The New New Economy
by Paul "the soaring" Siegel
"Dotcoms are dying daily."
This is the essence of much of the economic news we have been reading lately.
"There is no new economy."
This is the usual explanation for the downturn of the fortunes of many Internet businesses. It is true that many businesses did not have good business plans and overlooked the need to make a profit to stay in business. They suffered for it.
But there are many who merely disregarded the needs and wants of consumers visiting their sites. Here are a few obstacles visitors faced:
- FRAUD - People sign up for auctions, bid and pay for a product, and the product is never delivered. People fill a shopping cart with merchandise, enter their charge card numbers, which are then stolen. People buy a product. When they receive it, it's nothing like what was displayed or described. And they can't return it. Often the product is high-tech and the user doesn't know how to use it. And the vendor doesn't help. The list goes on.
- PRIVACY ATTACKS - A person visits a site. He's asked to sign a guest book. Shortly thereafter, he is barraged with email soliciting business. The vendor had sold the personal information to other outfits, who are building lists for sale. Some outfits gather as much information as they can about consumers and develop "profiles" on individuals, which they sell. The result is SPAM. Spamming is constant, ubiquitous, pervasive. Your would-be visitor is up in arms about all these privacy attacks.
- HAUGHTY HOSTS - A person tries to visit a site, and he waits, and waits, and waits. Nothing happens. Then he sees a big, complex graphic taking shape. Finally the home page comes into view. Often, after waiting so long for a weird object to take shape, the visitor is told, he may enter the site by clicking on the image. The lucky visitor is finally allowed into the inner sanctum. Other sites are so "prestigious" that a visitor must register in order to join the elite few allowed onto the site. Registration, they claim is free. Just answer 20 questions about yourself. (What do you think they will do with the answers?)
- NOBODY HOME - A person visits a site and wants to ask a small question. There is no way to do this. She looks all over, but there's no email address. There may be a form to fill out. All she wants to do is find out if they have a certain CD. She can't ask a question, but again, she must play 20 questions. Some sites do supply an email address, but when a visitor sends email, back comes a standard brochure via autoresponder. Wonderful technology, but what is the answer to the little question? Visitors look for an address. Not there. Phone number? Not there. Nobody home.
- AVARICIOUS VENDORS - A person visits and is immediately accosted by a dancing, vibrating, bouncing, rotating, twirling banner. Nothing else. And when the rest of the page loads, what does he see? Ad copy, the same sort of copy you find in junk mail coming through the Post Office. Nothing to help the visitor with, just old-fashioned manipulative advertising. On some of these sites, a visitor does not know the price of an item until he reaches the end of the shopping sequence and must provide charge card information. Is it any wonder that many do not complete the purchase?
- LOUSY SERVICE - Everything I mentioned above can be placed under the heading of lousy service. In addition, merchandise arrives late, complaints are not handled with care, support is worthless, etc.
These and other consumer atrocities indicate that too many Internet businesses weren't concerned with helping visitors. They were there to put up a website and collect money. Under these conditions, it is difficult to see why it took so long for some of these outfits to die.
We all say the visitor is king. But very few of us act accordingly. If you mean it, you will treat each visitor with respect and do the following:
- BE HONEST - Tell your visitors exactly what you are selling, what is included and what is not, and what it costs.
- RESPECT PRIVACY - Don't dig up pretexts to SPAM and don't sell customer-email and other personal information.
- BE RESPONSIVE - Make it easy to receive email by placing your email address on your site. When you receive email, answer immediately.
- HONOR YOUR VISITOR - Treat each visitor with respect. Do not subject him or her to hyped-up ad copy.
In other words, be helpful to visitors and they will appreciate it and do business with you. The more helpful you are, the greater the degree of trust that will develop between you and your clients. Loyalty will follow.
Those who were not helpful to visitors died. This is the end of the new economy. Survivors who want to live and grow need to adopt the philosophy of helpfulness.
Businesses on the Net concentrating on helpfulness will start a new Internet era:
The new new economy.
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