The belief is that too much information means people won’t contact them.

But think of it this way: your website is often the first point of contact a customer will have with your business. If your website is helpful, you are being helpful. That creates a positive first impression, and first impressions count. The additional detail you provide can also eliminate enquiries from people who you really can’t help anyway, so that can be an additional time saver.

On the other hand, if the information on your website is overly brief and sketchy, a potential customer may well leave thinking, “That was a waste of time – it didn’t tell me anything!”

Having said this, every industry is different of course, but you really need to consider the end user’s experience. Will it be a good one or a bad one?

More specifically many have an issue with pricing.

Think of it this way: You’re walking through the supermarket and a certain biscuit company has all their goodies stacked up on the end of the aisle. It has cost them a fortune to buy that space for the week, not to mention the extra stock and the time spent in stacking it up.

But there’s no price on anything.

So, when you’re walking past with your trolley, do you put any of those biscuits in?

Chances are you won’t.

At the end of the day, people will want to know the price. So why make that information difficult to get?

And if you’re in an industry where pricing is a bit tricky or complicated, read this advice for a possible solution.

The recommendation?

Don’t let people walk past your site like a supermarket display without crucial information. Put enough there so they do stop, look around, and just maybe you’ll have a new customer!

But someone has taken a different angle and posted a bottle of “genuine” flood water on Ebay.

With about 3 days left on the auction there are already 18 bids!

It just goes to show: if you’re quick enough, there are opportunities everywhere!

I read this article on email and customer service about 6 months ago but while I was looking at some goals for 2008 I thought it was worth revisiting.

So how do you stack up in those figures? If I’m not careful I tend to find myself amongst the 70% who fail to respond within 24 hours. Definately something I’ll be fixing for 2008.

A good tactic is mentioned in Mike’s first point:

Automatically respond to all emails received: People will be more willing to wait for a reply if their initial communication has been acknowledged. Include a commitment to act on the issue and when you will respond fully.

I think people will generally understand if you can’t address the issue immediately – but it’s important to acknowledge the email and set an expectation of when you will be able to do so.

It also ties in to something I wrote back in 2004 about controlling your email (instead of the other way around!) – it’s as relevant now as then.

So, my top tips:

1. Choose when to check your email – don’t let your computer decide for you
2. As you’re going through your messages, fire up your diary (or whatever time management tool you use) and mark a time to actually attend to the task or issue
3. Respond to each email as soon as you read it (even if it’s only a brief response) – and at that point you can let the other person know when you’ll attend to is as well

Of course, if it’s an emergency you may need to deal with it straight away and all the above advice is null and void, but we don’t live in a perfect world, do we?

Sure, the up-front costs were less. But then the unexpected bills started coming in. Not to mention hugely inflated web hosting fees.

When considering your options, it pays to look at the bigger picture. What are the ongoing costs? How much are updates going to be? Can you update it yourself?

To make matters worse, when the firm chosen to do the website found out that the hosting was been transferred over to us they turned everything off there and then. Website. Email. The lot. And they can’t or won’t tell us the details to access the domain name either, so we can’t even actually initiate the transfer!

Some things to check:

1. Make sure any domain names are registered in your name, with your contact details (not the web designer’s).
2. Find out how much is being charged for web hosting. Depending on how much space you need, anything more than about $300 per year is probably too much.
3. Double check before proceeding if there are any other ongoing costs besides these 2.

While we’re on the subject of domain names, we charge $90 every 2 years for a “.com.au” and $30 per year for “.com” names. See what’s available here.

It happens all the time – in the supermarket you might be a bit unsure about buying a brand you’ve never heard of as opposed to one that’s familiar. Is the ‘known’ one any better? Not necessarily. But you recognise it, and feel more comfortable buying it.

If you doubt the subliminal effects in play, watch this video from Derren Brown, an English psychological illusionist who focuses on perceptual manipulation and persuasive techniques.

You need be consistent with your branding, and use your logo everywhere you can.

We have just got a super duper new digital printer copier (need a pilot?s licence to operate it mind you) -however it is brilliant. We can now produce high quality full color prints, single or double sided on either A4 or A3! On top of that, we can convert ordinary documents to booklets.

So…

• Need that short run colour print done?
• Need a duplication of your procedures manual?
• Run out of your brochures and waiting for the next lot?

Email it over, or pop in? We’ll have it done in a jiffy!

Many businesses do nothing extra for their clients. This is a simple and inexpensive way to do that little bit more than your competition!

Did you know that we can print pens for you as well? And for this month only, we are running a special on one particular sort of pen – colours are blue, red, green, purple or orange, with a soft grip and a metal pocket clip. If you order 1000 of these pens, printed with your company name/website (in silver), we can offer a $100 saving – they will only be $530 (incl GST) for 1000 pens! (For March 2005 only).

“The Windows security updates for January 2005 include several important updates for Microsoft Windows and some installations of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, a component of Windows. If you have any of the software listed on this page installed on your computer, you should visit the Windows Update Web site to install related updates.

Visit their security bulleting for more information.

Here’s more good news – search engines like blogs.

An example from this website: After Anna Mears won her gold medal at the Athens Olympics, I posted this short note of congratulations. Within days I was recieving a lot of traffic courtesy of people searching Google for “Anna Mears”. Within days. And even now, I still rank Number one:

The reasons why are outlined in the link above – but whatever the reasons, I can vouch for the result!

Do you have news you could share with clients on a reasonably regular basis? Maybe you could benefit from a blog too. It can be integrated with your existing website, and we can also use it to form the basis of an email newsletter.

Sharing your news with clients has never been easier!

Worth noting:

• Janet Jackson was more popular than John Kerry (Maybe that explains the result of the US election)
• Searches for cricket made number 8 in the sports list
• The top 4 global searches were all females (Britney, Paris, Christina Aguilera and Pamela Anderson)

Enough useless trivia? Yep!