TINY POINTS OF FRICTION
I went into the drug store to get some basics: toothpaste, deoderant, razor blades etc. It wasn’t an emergency, just stocking up on the essentials, and I expected to be in and out in an instant. When I got to the razors, I found that they were locked and required an employee to dispense. And now, I get my razors from Dollar Shave Club online...
The small point of friction of having to hail down an employee, wait for them to come over, and perform a sort of “high-security prisoner exchange” after they’ve confirmed that I don’t look like a thief, was enough to make me forget buying blades at retail - not just that day, forever. It wasn’t the quality of the blades, nor the cost, nor the brand, nor the very pleasant rest of the shopping experience; it was that one (relatively small) point of friction that robbed both Gillette and CVS of revenue. The same thing is probably happening on your website right now.
Marketers love e-commerce for its linear flow: lead channels funnel customers to a site and they are driven to transaction. The experts of e-commerce analyze the funnel, A/B test every detail, and optimize the flow to reduce customer friction. Perhaps no one has ever done this better than Amazon with it’s one-click to buy button. Smaller businesses, start-ups, and those that aren’t high-transaction volume businesses have a harder time analyzing their web funnel and diagnosing the small points of friction. Their are good analytics tools to help, but even those can be pricey or difficult for a small business owner to use. In some cases, the best thing you can do is try it yourself.
When I engage with a client, I start by approaching their site as a prospective customer. Being pre-disposed to focus on messaging, I pay specific attention to how long it takes me to ‘get’ what they do and why they are different. If within 30 seconds of landing on the site I don’t have a clear sense of the problem they solve and their unique position to solve it, I’m both frustrated and pretty sure they’re losing customers. If they offer an e-commerce solution, I’ll follow that path and evaluate the little things (button placement, clarity of next steps, context, colors, how the style of the site informs my judgement of the brand, etc.) looking for the tiny points of friction that could stop the sale.
If you don’t have the tools, staff or marketing know how to operate a scientific conversion rate optimization process, be sure to at least take the time to put yourself in the customer’s shoes on occasion, or have a friend/neighbor test the path to and through your website. Sometimes we rush to blame the product, pricing, quality of leads, or other factors for the loss of customers, when it’s as simple as putting your blades under lock and key.
