UCD Concepts

I stumbled across a great  blog  called Palmer Web Marketing.  They have a 25 Ways Series that is very thought provoking and something I will certainly blog about in the near future.

Now back to the reason for this post.

I was reading a guest post by Justin Palmer on Get Elastic called Losing Customers at the Register: 12 Checkout Blunders.  This is an excellent article for those of you in e-commerce that have anything to do with the checkout process.

Justin talks about 12 checkout blunders that attribute to the loss of customers at the register.  While many of these are refreshers for some, this article might spark some interest in others that may be starting in e-commerce.

Get Elastic is one of my favorite blogs for e-commerce usability tips and statistics.  I find that a good majority of posts they present (whether big or small), really provide valuable insight into the many problems that online retailers face.

Since I don’t yet know the rules and etiquette of quoting articles from other blogs (I just started blogging), I am going to only name the 12 areas and allow you to follow the link to read the article.

1. Unfriendly Credit Card Errors
2. Login
3. Default Credit Card Type Selected
4. Cancel Buttons
5. Up-selling or Cross-selling
6. Disclaimers, Explanations, and Warnings
7. Insecure Page Errors
8. Only One Payment Type
9. Dead End Receipt Pages
10. Hiding Additional Charges
11. No Prominent 1-800 Number
12. Product Stockouts

Please be sure to check out the comments at the bottom of the article.  I find those that participate in the comments sometimes have a different point of view and call out things that the author may have missed.

I’d like to comment regarding #11 – No Prominent 1-800 Number because I am of the mindset that companies need to balance the user experience with what they can justify in cost to provide – meaning that if a company cannot afford the staff to handle the volume of calls the experience will become sour fast.  There are very few times you will ever hear me say that, but how would you like it if you called an (800) number and went through the multiple phone paths only to find out that there is no rep available to help you?

Personally, I would much rather avoid that experience as much as possible.  There are other alternatives that can be cost-justified such as Click to Chat.  Retailers using Click to Chat can allow one rep to handle multiple help inquiries simultaneously while a phone rep can usually handle only one request at a time.

That alone should help justify the technology, but let’s look at it from another angle.

The call center can continue to provide phone service along with the Click to Chat and possibly cut down their daytime calls if users have the second option.  The reduction of calls could then be seen as a possible increase with customer satisfaction which should lead into an increase in conversion over time.

Clik to Chat can also be the “after hours” contact method allowing a fraction of reps for maximum handling of help inquiries and allowing for a 24/7 customer service for all those night time shoppers.

It could be a win/win situation for everyone involved.  Maybe I will visit this topic again in the future with additional information.  If you would like to read more about Click to Chat or Live Chat as a sales tool, check out this article at Internet Retailer called Let’s talk Once seen as a customer service option, live chat has become a sales tool

Again, the link to the article is Losing Customers at the Register: 12 Checkout Blunders and I promise it will give you something to think about.  Maybe it will remind you of something that happened at your online store in recent months.

Let’s talk about passwords for a minute.  How many times have you forgotten your password logging into a website or application?  How long before you were able to figure it out?

I have been unable to access the admin area of my blog two days in a row now.  Why, you might ask.

Well, I forgot my password or maybe it was my username.  I’m not really sure which one I forgot first because I thought I had both of them correct.  Error after error and I tried to go the “Forgot your password?” route and that didn’t work either.  I got so confused I just left it alone for a while and left the site.

Now I can’t imagine that I am the only person this happens to so let’s discuss a very important area of the checkout process for online retailers.  You know that point where you leave your shopping cart and begin the process of buying your items?  What do you think happens to those who can’t remember their login credentials?

You stop the momentum of buying, right?

It’s almost like walking up to the cashier and forgetting your driver’s license when they ask to verify it is your credit card, or maybe it is forgetting your phone number so they can’t pull up the information already stored in the computer system.

How do some retailers resolve this issue?  They offer anonymous checkout.  It might take a little bit longer to complete the checkout process, but you don’t have to go through the hassle of trying to figure out your username or password to purchase.  If you try and fail too many times, your account could very well get locked down.  That’s just one of many reasons why I would advocate the username to actually be the e-mail address.  It is easier to remember and is unique.  I can’t tell you how many times I decided not to register on a site because I couldn’t think of a good username that was not already taken.

Anonymous checkout is great and our usability testing has proven anonymous checkout to be a clear winner over registering if the user has a choice.  Why is that?

Well, it depends on your users.  Security is obviously a contributing factor and some users are afraid to have their information stored online.  Those who preferred anonymous checkout also said that they would consider registering if they were to frequent the site and purchase more often though.

What does this mean for online retailers?

By forcing registration, you increase the likelihood that the sale will not take place.  By offering the flexibility of registered and anonymous checkout, you will give the user the opportunity to proceed through the checkout process anonymously and enter all of their information, and hopefully they will register because they won’t want to fill out their information each time.

So let’s take a look at the different areas registration would be helpful.

Shopping Cart –> Log In

The Log In page would be a great start for the user to register, but you need to be careful not to remove them from the checkout process and you certainly don’t want to lose any items from their cart when they do register.  If a user wants to register, this is the first place they will be looking to register during the checkout process.

Billing Page –> Order Review

Here’s where things get a bit tricky.  Some online retailers have a Billing/Review page, others separate the process of billing from review.  Does it make sense to have it at this point?  Sure, but it will only make sense after the user has entered their billing information so they have finished entering all of the information that will be stored with the user’s account.

Personally, I would prefer to have the user enter their e-mail on the Order Review page if it is separate from the Billing page.  The reason for this is the user will have reviewed the order and will then be ready to purchase so this is the most relative area to ask where they want a confirmation e-mail to go.

Another thing to keep in mind is how much information you will be requiring the user to enter (aside from their shipping/billing information) to become a registered user.  Will the e-mail address and a password suffice?

I believe those two things are all you need to get the user to register.  You can then use the e-mail address to pre-populate the e-mail address field in the registration component so all the user has left to do is enter the password.

If you throw in the Security Question, you will be forcing the user to have to think about the process of registering and it could put them off a bit or skip the registration altogether.

Remember, we want this to be seamless within the checkout flow and you can always ask them the security question the next time they visit their profile.  Let’s just get them to go through with the transaction first.

Order Review –> Confirmation

So now we come down to the end of the checkout process and the user placed their order.  We found users are least likely to register on the Confirmation page.  You would think that the user would be happy to do so after filling out all of that information, but nope, all they want is to see that confirmation # and they’re out of there.

So what’s the key to offering registration on the Confirmation page?

Placement and visual treatment.

Keep the registration in close proximity to the confirmation #, and maybe even set the registration component higher in the visual hierarchy so that, as the user scans to see the confirmation #, they will also see the registration component.  By doing this you will be increasing the likelihood that the user will see registration and finish the process.

The key to a quick registration is to pre-populate the e-mail address fields and only ask for the password and be sure to have them re-type the password so that they have a better chance of not putting the wrong password in.

It would be great to share some usability testing results (anonymous of course) to see what others in the field have found regarding Log In & Registration.  If any of you have performed usability studies on this process, please feel free to comment.  After all, that’s why I created this blog.  So that other UE practitioners can learn from each other.

I look at user experience like being a doctor.  It doesn’t matter what team your on, we are here to provide the best user experience we can for the user.  Sure, we may not be performing brain surgery, but we are trying to optimize the processing a brain has to do.

Cheers.