Web Wise

In your ongoing quest for the perfect Web site, there are some things to keep in mind.

Buying wireless service is a confusing endeavor. With multiple service providers in each market, each offering different rate plans, phones and accessories, many people have come to rely on the Internet to help them research services before they buy. With so much to tell potential and existing customers, determining which information to prioritize is crucial to your site's success.

Marketing Mistakes
Brian Crawford, interaction designer for www.processmagic.com, pointed out that although it is a good idea to keep users abreast of new products and services, you should not do so at the expense of site usability. Many companies make the mistake of putting too much information on their Web sites, hoping that advertisements will incite browsers to buy add-ons.

"Usually consumers know what they want before they go to a Web site, and if they are distracted from what they want to find by too many needless elements on a page, they'll go somewhere else," he said.

Peter Mackey, Digital Idea president, said that if you advertise, do so subtly. Don't hit customers with pop-up promotions or automatically sweep them away to another site or page. Instead, create an area within your site dedicated to new promotions and products that customers can choose to access.

"Once they get the feeling that the whole site has been designed for the company's purposes, they get turned off," he said " People like to feel that they have control and can get what they want out of a site."

John Cregier, U.S. Cellular director of e-business, said sites that blast customers with offers are like car dealerships that bombard customers with pushy salespeople.

"Those types of sites are not consistent with our brand," he said. "We are here to helpsimplify lives. We don't want to make it more complex or add pressure. The way our site feels must convey that."

Navigation No-No's
The best Web sites are easy to navigate, but exactly what does that mean? Most experts suggest that you keep it simple. Crawford said one faux pas is overloading your site with flashy, animated graphics that take ages to download or enormous pages with little useful information.

"You want your pages to be to the point and easily scannable so that users can find what they're looking for, and you want to keep download times to a minimum — less than 10 seconds would be best — so that users don't decide to shop somewhere else," Crawford said.

Troy Ardis, Triton PCS director of Internet/intranet, said his company went to great lengths to ensure that its pages could download quickly.

"Using technology that doesn't work with most browsers, unless you add components, may prevent people from shopping at your online store because they have to download a particular extension for their browser," he said. "As Web standards evolve, we go along with those standards. At the same time, we make sure we are not too cutting edge so that the site is viewable on older browsers."

Triton PCS' Internet traffic quadrupled between the first version of its SunCom site in January 1999 and the second iteration in June 1999. Traffic doubled again between June 1999 and the latest update last February, when the company added e-commerce functions to the site. It designed its site to be able to handle this increasing traffic.

"Many companies underestimate the number of people who will visit their site, so they don't make it scaleable," Ardis warned.

Triton PCS uses a multitiered e-commerce back-office system that separates the Web, application and database servers. Everything hooks into its billing provider, Convergys, as well as its credit and fraud-check agency, Lightbridge. This design makes the system more secure, as well as faster and more scaleable.

Crawford said that an ideal Web site would work like this: When a user logs on to the site, there is a single button on the page. By clicking this button, the user can purchase exactly what he would like, and it is sent to his preferred address and paid for by his preferred method of payment.

"This is pretty much impossible at this point, but when building a Web site, you should try to get as close to this vision of e-commerce as possible," Crawford said.

Checklist
Now that you know what to avoid on your Web site, what should you include? Cregier envisions that in the future, designers will build intelligence into sites that can predict what customers want. For example, if a customer looks at a coverage map, then phones, chances are he will want to see your rate plans. Because most Web sites are not at this point today, you need other ways to guide users through your site. A site map or a virtual tour of the site will help.

Another way to put users back in control is by offering a search feature on each page, Crawford said.

"If a user wants to buy something and can find it by using search, it is only one click away," he said. "If they have to hunt for it in your hierarchy of Web pages, it might be four or five clicks away — and for an impatient user that might be three or four clicks too many."

Mackey said his company's research shows that the four most important things customers want on a Web site are: to view and pay bills, buy products and services, adjust features and services, and interact with CSRs. Additionally, once you begin offering e-commerce, feedback loops are crucial.

"If they place an order, make a change or request a bill, there should be an instant confirmation of that," he said.

Christine Davies, Triton PCS vice president of advertising and corporate communications, said that the service provider sends e-mail confirmations when customers place orders and when orders are sent.

"Our goal was to make it as easy to shop on our site as it is to go on Amazon.com, although buying wireless service is a little more complicated," she said.

If you are still unsure of what to put on your site and what to leave off, there are other things you can do. Try analyzing your current Web-site traffic. Products such as WebSideStory's HitBox and Digital Idea's siter can help you understand the details behind your traffic. Learning the most popular operating systems, browsers and screen parameters can help you design a site that can be accessed by more people.

Or, you can research the old-fashioned way: talk to your customers. Cregier said U.S. Cellular plans to set up meetings with business customers to see what they want out of the next version of its Web site.

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EBPP Update

Although most wireless-service providers offer e-commerce capabilities on their Web sites, fewer offer electronic billing payment and presentment (EBPP), interactive customer service or the ability to adjust features via the Internet. Triton PCS anticipates offering EBPP in the next few months. All customers will be able to view and pay bills simply by registering and validating their phone numbers, Social Security numbers and the name on the accounts, said Troy Ardis, Triton PCS director of Internet/intranet. The company also will allow customers to download billing information to further analyze their calling patterns. Future upgrades to the site will provide more tools to allow them to analyze patterns and ensure they are on the best rate plan.

John Cregier, U.S. Cellular director of e-business, said U.S. Cellular also hopes to invest in EBPP, as well as interactive customer service. The company now answers frequently-asked questions on its site but hopes to enhance its online service to help customers answer almost any question through the Web.

Jacqueline Brudlos, WirelessNorth spokesperson, said her company is in the midst of a Web site redesign.

"We are interested in making it more user-friendly," she said. "We would like a person to be able to type in their ZIP code, and up pops a screen notifying them if we have service in their area."

WirelessNorth also will be adding a text-messaging feature to its site where people can type in a message for a WirelessNorth subscriber from the company's Web site. Brudlos added that the company still is evaluating the possibility of adding e-commerce capabilities to the site.

Harter (betsyharter@aol.com) is a freelance writer based in Athens, GA.