Get Interactive

Providing email addresses, feedback forms, and blogs on your site can help customers feel more involved.

The days of standing around chatting with the store manager about how much you really like the lawnmower, dryer, or anything else you recently purchased are long gone — but your customers’ opinions are still there for your business. And let’s face it, people want to know that their opinion counts. A business web site should give visitors a chance to ask questions or exchange ideas.

Engage your visitors with three simple tools.

Email Address
The easiest ways to gather feedback are often overlooked. Make sure your web site has a link somewhere on the page — typically at the bottom — for an email account of a webmaster or customer service representative. Be sure to assign someone the task of reading those emails and responding accordingly.

Product Reviews
A more proactive way to solicit feedback is with a product review feature on your site. “The theory is that [potential customers] will feel more comfortable hearing from someone who’s already purchased the product,” says Sean Gove, vice president of web site developer Solid Cactus. “This way, customers do the selling for you, and if you see that everyone dislikes a product, you can remove it from your offerings,” he says.

With a product review feature, all feedback can be sent to an administrator prior to posting, which helps you control what’s posted on your site. An email gets sent to a designated person alerting them of reviews, which can be approved, modified, or denied.

Blogs
Never underestimate the power of a blog.

“Blogs are really the way to go, as they tend to get picked up in the search engines pretty well,” Gove says. “You should be dropping links to your store in the postings so that you can get customers back to the store for additional purchases.”

Blogging allows for increased communication between the host (in this case, your store) and potential and current customers — a conversation that takes place at the convenience of all parties involved.

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