Getting Back to the Basics of Checkout Protocol By Alexis Gutzman
June 20, 2000
The great Green Bay Packers football coach, Vince Lombardi, was known for telling his players to stick to the basics. He drilled them on the basics over and over and over. The results? Two Super Bowls and five NFL Championships. Sometimes even in the exciting, fast-changing world of e-commerce, we need to get back to the basics and take inventory of our own sites to make sure we''re doing the fundamentals right.
In the early days of the Web, site visitors were technology mavericks like me who were patient with sites that showed errors - heck, we often screen-captured the error message and sent it off to the webmaster with a friendly note; we were all learning together. We expected broken links, old content on "news and information" sites, and occasional strange behavior from a site. Today''s visitors are more like my father. Site errors confuse them, broken links frustrate them, and checkout problems rob them of all confidence that they''ll ever figure out this "Internet thing."
The difference between then and now is that those of us who used the Web then didn''t blame ourselves for site errors; we knew that sites were flaky and we had the confidence and experience to know we weren''t doing anything wrong. Today''s Web visitor needs constant reassurance that he''s "doing it right," or he''s liable to give up and drive over to Barnes and Noble, rationalizing that this way he can grab a cappuccino while he''s there.
I''m Good Enough, I''m Smart Enough... As an online merchant, you have an interest in the new generation of shoppers feeling confident with your site and having an overall positive online shopping experience. If another site''s checkout process gives them reason for concern, they''ll carry that baggage right over to your site, and possibly abandon the cart for the slightest reason, now that their hackles have been raised.
Having a smooth checkout process is critically important to keeping the new online shopper happy and clicking along, rather than frightened or frustrated and clicking away. Simple things like unhelpful or missing error messages can make the difference between a confident, satisfied customer who makes the purchase, and one who will take months before he wanders in "over his head" again.
Check List of Checkout Protocol Run through your own checkout process, using a mouse, rather than the tab key you''re probably accustomed to using when you''re on familiar ground, and see how your site measures up. Here''s a basic protocol you can follow:
For each screen in the checkout tunnel, ask only for information you need, in the order a visitor expects you to ask. Don''t begin by asking for payment details until you''ve asked for shipping and billing information. If you accept an alternative payment option, such as InternetCash or eCharge Phone, and you don''t need a billing address, don''t ask for it.
Review the error messages for each field to make sure they tell shoppers what the field permits. I once came to a site that required a phone number, but didn''t tell me what to or not to include (digits only, spaces, hyphens, parentheses, etc.). The error message just kept saying, "Please enter a valid phone number," but what valid meant to them was a mystery to me.
If you have any plans to retain customer information to make subsequent buying more convenient, tell the shopper. Then ask whether you have permission to "keep" the data on file for his future convenience, for each group of fields (billing address, billing information, shipping address, etc.). You and I both know that when your customer is paying by credit card, you have to keep most of this information on file. However, until he gives you permission to keep it, and show it to him again, you haven''t made it a convenience for him, you''ve invaded his privacy.
A couple of weeks ago I was shopping at Overstock.com - great prices, smooth checkout process, no problems. I paid with a credit card and went about my business. Last week I received a promotion from them and decided to purchase again. To my utter horror, when I got to the payment screen, there was my credit card number on the screen - not just the first four digits with a bunch of X''s or a bunch of X''s with the last four digits, but the entire number. Despite the fact that they hadn''t asked me whether I wanted them to keep my shipping and billing information "on file," they had the nerve to send the entire number! That''s not just an abuse of my personal information, it''s stupid. There''s no justification in the world for sending my full credit card across the Web unnecessarily. Smart sites like Land''s End tell you that by having them keep your number on file, you don''t have to worry about your number being sent across the Internet unnecessarily. Overstock.com broke more than one rule of checkout protocol.
Give clear instructions on each checkout screen telling the visitor what you''re asking for and why you need it. Also tell him what to expect when he clicks "Next" or "Submit" buttons.
The "Thank You For Your Order" page should include both an order confirmation number, a customer service contact number, and an itemized receipt of what was ordered. Then tell your customers to "Print this page for your records." Make it easy for your customers to do it right.
Satisfied Customers Are Good For Everyone What all Web merchants are learning is that no one "owns a customer." Your customer will likely become my customer at some point - without you losing him. When customers are confident that they can do this Internet thing, they''re more likely to move their shopping from the offline world to the online world. When that happens, all Web merchants win.
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