This sales stopper began with voicemail, which seemed like such a good idea when we helped a Silicon Valley voicemail company introduce it to the world back in the day.
Too bad it didn’t take long for voicemail to become the exact opposite of “helpful.”
As we are all painfully aware, voicemail forces customers to jump through multiple hoops before they can speak with a live human. And often that is actually impossible!
All for the company’s convenience, not the customer’s.
Next, there were script-driven chatbots pretending to be humans and asking if they could help. Customers trying to buy or get service from the company were often frustrated because the chatbot was reluctant to connect them to a human, even though it didn’t have the answer in its digital head.
Fast forward to our age of AI, where numerous interactions between digital assistants and humans are increasingly automated.
I’m not talking about daily strategic chats with your favorite chatbot, something that founders, CEOs, and many others are doing all over the world.
I’m talking about chatbots set up to interact with humans seeking to buy something or receive help before, during, and after the purchase.
Today’s customers are more frustrated than ever, in spite of all these “helpful” tools at their disposal.
A friend of mine was buying some specialized wire for an audio project, which is normally sold in large quantities, starting at 100-foot spools.
What he needed was approximately 35 feet.
The site showed him that length as an option, so he clicked on it. The site took forever to load the next screen (the wheel just kept on spinning), so he had to give up on that choice.
Next, he tried chatting with the site’s chatbot. He was finally transferred to a human. He explained the situation.
The human sent him the correct URL for what he was looking for. That page worked; he placed the order.
He thought.
Three days later, he got an email saying they didn’t have that option in stock.
The order was cancelled, and he got his money back through PayPal.
There are several sales stoppers here.
- The “out of stock” notice should have appeared when he placed the order.
- It shouldn’t have been so difficult to talk to a human.
- The human should have been able to see that this amount of wire was out of stock.
- Why couldn’t the human have someone cut 35 feet of wire from one of the 100-foot spools? That would have been kind.
My friend said the possibility of him ever going back to that company to buy anything after this experience was “greatly reduced.” So not only did the company lose this sale, but also subsequent sales.
“But this was a tiny sale,” you might be thinking.
That kind of thinking is another way to stop your own sales.
What if my friend worked for a huge company considering switching to a new wire vendor, and wanted to see how the company performed for this small order? What if that small order represented millions in sales over several years?
The rush to place more automation between companies and their customers is costing companies billions in sales every single day.
Imagine being able to call a large company, for example, and a human answers the call (shocking!), then stays on the call until the matter is resolved to the customer’s satisfaction (also shocking!).
Picture a company customer service representative, on the phone with a customer, seeing the product’s true status in real time right on their screen.
Imagine if the company’s programmers interviewed customers and conducted “over-the-shoulder” testing to ensure that what they’re creating creates no frustration points for the customer? So, if the customer does interact with the company’s automated interactions, it’s as smooth as it can be?
Almost all the software ever made has been crippled by developers who assume they know how customers think, how they want to carry out their buying process, and use the application.
Guessing what customers are thinking has become an epidemic.
A very expensive one.
It pains me to see CEOs make unnecessary mistakes with their marketing. Are you? Let’s talk. Text me at 401-423-2400.