Match your website to your in-person customer experience.

64 percent of American consumers in an Oracle survey said they’d stop doing business with a company after a bad customer experience. Of those respondents, nearly all of them said they’d go ahead and purchase the same product or service from a competitor.

That’s the pressure every business owner faces. Get it right, or never get the sale.

I meet business owners every day who agonize over what happens as soon as a customer walks through their door. They script and sculpt the conversations prospects have with agents over the phone. They arrange bar stools at 45 degree angles to make their spaces more inviting. They’ll hire street musicians on weekends to entertain lines, and pour their own sweat into preparing customer orders for delivery.

Many of those same business owners happen to have outdated or underdeveloped websites that don’t match the user experience you’d actually get if you walked into their stores, offices, or restaurants. They’re so overwhelmed by the idea of running a website that they “paid the web guy” to do something a few years back. We call this “reactive communication” — it’s the type of communication that leads people to think it’s okay to deal with something further down the line. And we understand: they’re worried that spending any more on their website won’t drive results. But in those conversations, I often ask this question:

Forget blogging, forget social media, forget content strategy. If a storm hits and you need to update your company’s hours of operation on your website, how would you do that?

Assuming that your audience will find out on Twitter or Facebook isn’t the answer, either. Your website has to be the hub for your online presence. It should be as good at offering information about your company as the person you’ve staffed at the front door of your operation. And you should be able to update it yourself, from anywhere, without having to pay someone extra or beg a favor from a family friend. It’s key to your reputation management and to your user experience.

Our monthly content strategy consulting package includes full setup and maintenance of WordPress, either as the content management system for your entire website or as a blog “bolted on” to your existing setup. Even though we’re populating our clients’ websites with fresh content throughout the month, our clients always have the ability to add their own updates and manage their sites. It’s the kind of empowerment a business owner should demand from any marketing or web production partner. Contact us if you’re not getting that kind of experience from your current vendor.