 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Welcome to VISION (formerly Web Apps Monthly)— brought to you by
TeaLeaf Technology
In this issue of VISION, we imagine a world of businesses managed from the outside-in.
Each issue of VISION is comprised of the following sections:
• Perspectives
Insight and commentary on online customer experience.
• News & Events
We'll make it easy for you to keep current.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
When Good Enough, Is Not Enough
By Geoff Galat
A while back, when visiting customers and prospects, the CIO of a large,
well-known drugstore chain asked me what seemed to be a simple question:
"In all of your experiences and with all the information you have collected
supporting your value proposition, have you ever seen any data on the acceptable
rate of failure for Web-based transactions?"
| |
|
Failure is not the only punishment for laziness;
there is also the success of others.
Jules Renard
|
|
|
I pondered momentarily, sifting through all the reports I have seen, read,
or even commissioned, when it hit me, and I answered: "Why should it be any
different than the rate of failure for transactions in one of your stores?"
The CIO scratched his head. He then paused, and I imagined the following scenario
playing out in his mind: Diana, a working mother, sprints inside her local
drugstore to purchase her child's prescription inhaler. She's already 15 minutes
late for work, but she knows that she can quickly purchase it since the refill
was phoned in yesterday. When Diana reaches the counter, the clerk asks for her
insurance ID and then proceeds to ring up the prescription. Diana hands the
clerk her credit card and anxiously watches the clock. In the middle of the
transaction, the point-of-sale system freezes and the clerk says: "This problem
always seems to happen when we first open our registers. I'd ring you up on
another one, but I don't want to charge you twice."
The clerk continues: "As long as you are here, do you have time to help me fix
the problem? You can watch me as I try to figure out what is wrong and hopefully
give me all the information I need to figure out why this is happening.
If I can't fix it, you'll have to come back this evening after the manager has a
chance to try and figure it out. But it's busy in the evening, so I'd recommend
just coming back tomorrow. Hopefully it will work then."
While this in-store scenario is completely unacceptable - and absurd - for even
a single customer, its online near-equivalent is played out in customers' browsers
more times than we can imagine. How many Dianas are trying to urgently refill
prescriptions online or pay their mortgage, or buy airline tickets, but unable
to finish the process because the Web site failed them? How much money did you
spend driving Diana to your site? How many Dianas just abandon after you get them
there? Do you even know why?
Why is it acceptable for customers to fail online, when it is not
acceptable for other channels of business?
Think about this statistic: typical online conversion rates are in the single
digits, anywhere from 1.5% to 5%. What would happen to a "traditional" business
if between 95% and 98.5% of the customers who walk in the door did not buy?
What about the customers of YOUR online business? How many encounter obstacles
causing their transactions to fail? Blocked logins? Broken credit card validations?
Endless loops? Missing confirmations? The list of possible transaction failures is
endless.
Online customer failures are no longer an option
According to The Patricia Seybold Group, a strategic consulting firm for
ebusiness solutions, customer loyalty is rooted in the customer experience.
It doesn't matter if your customers are conducting business transactions online
or offline, you must service both channels well. You cannot afford the
alternatives-lost revenue, decreased operating margins, frustrated customers,
increased IT support costs, and damaged brand.
Download the report here.
When the Web was "new", it was somehow acceptable for businesses to allow their
customers to fail online, when it has never been acceptable for other channels.
How do businesses protect against the failure of customers to complete a purchase
or transaction when in a store? It is often through active management - fueled
by observation. They actively manage the business as a result of what they see -
if lines at checkout are long, they open more registers, if one teller is tied
up in a lengthy process, they call-in more tellers. If lines are short, retailers
close registers and have clerks attend to other business activities such as
merchandising, restocking, and inventory. This real-time ability to observe -
visibility - has been missing online. Because you can't see what your customers
are seeing and doing and apply the same active responses to eliminate the
hurdles that get in their way of conducting business with you, you are already
running at a disadvantage - until now, with TeaLeaf RealiTea.
The "acceptable rate" of online failure is no longer a question with TeaLeaf
RealiTea. We are committed to helping you make sure that every customer can
complete every transaction, every time. Because TeaLeaf passively captures what
each customer sees and does, you can detect, analyze, and respond to problems
blocking customers from successfully completing their transactions.
Now when Diana logons to your Web application, enters her prescription, insurance,
and credit card information and promptly receives a confirmation,
you'll follow her each step of the way. You'll know as soon as she encounters a
problem, and you can rapidly fix it, so she doesn't go elsewhere to fill it.
As one CIO quickly learned, online customer failures are no longer an option.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
There's always a lot going on here at TeaLeaf. Allow us to share with you the latest and greatest.
"TeaLeaf Launches Next-generation Web Application Management Solution,
Providing Powerful Visibility Into Web Customer Experience"
TeaLeaf
Excerpt: RealiTea passively captures what customers do and see in real-time,
enabling immediate detection, analysis, and response to issues blocking customers
from successfully using key eBusiness services. Providing rules-based session
inspection, true visual reproduction, rapid diagnosis, and actionable reporting
in a scalable and secure environment, RealiTea uncovers problems that otherwise
go undetected, significantly reduces problem-resolution time, and eliminates
obstacles that lower customer conversion rates and raise customer service burdens.
Read the complete announcement here.
"McKesson Selects RealiTea From TeaLeaf To Optimize Customers' Online Experience "
TeaLeaf
Excerpt: "TeaLeaf RealiTea will allow us to see exactly what the customer is
experiencing," said Robert Fearing, Vice President of E-commerce for
McKesson Pharmaceutical. "We'll have the ability to not only capture, inspect,
and alert, but also play back real user sessions and collect analytic data that
will help us improve the SMO system for our customers, helping them to spend less
of their time on ordering and inventory management, and more on patient care."
Read the complete announcement here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
TeaLeaf is a leading provider of solutions that offer powerful visibility into
the online customer experience. Providing unprecedented visibility to all stake
holders within an organization, from C-level executives, IT management, business
managers, and customer service, the TeaLeaf RealiTea platform is the only solution
that gives a browser-level, 'outside-in' view of the customer experience of
every user, for every transaction, because in the maturing eBusiness environment,
online customer failures are no longer an option. Using patented technology, the
award-winning TeaLeaf RealiTea solution enables companies to detect, analyze, and
respond to eliminate obstacles that prevent customers from successfully conducting
business online. TeaLeaf is headquartered in San Francisco, CA and its customers
include more than 25 Fortune-class companies — including more than 30 financial
services institutions, 15 insurance providers, and nearly 40 leading retailers,
as well as manufacturers, travel & hospitality, telecommunications, and
distribution companies
For more information, email
info@tealeaf.com
or visit the Web site at
www.tealeaf.com.
|
|
|
|
|
|
