The Secrets of Website Persuasion - Assignment Example

Website [The of the will appear here] [The of the will appear here] For an e-commerce venture, website design is the most vital component of the business. Thus consideration to different parts of the design should be given. The website should be designed as per standard designs so that customers develop a level of trust for the company. The website should take into account the fact that attracting and retaining customers in the growing internet world has become quite difficult and requires a multitude of techniques. Introduction A website is a crucial component of an e-commerce initiative since it is the first visual interaction that a user has with the company. Thus, a website should be user-friendly and connect with the user. It should be able to attract the customer and retain him. A website is only effective if it is able to achieve this task. Part 1: The Wireframe The Wireframe of ABC Limited is an important component of the website design. This is the basic visual guideline of the website around which the information, pictures and other graphics are placed within the website (Kerr and Keats, 2009). When placing information and other elements on the website, it is important to consider the target customer and their way of interacting with the website. Research on this topic reveals that the average customer has a way in which he processes information on a website. This depends on his eye movement when he opens a website. A typical eye movement begins from the top left, moves to the center and then scans the right and left side of the website. This shows that the top left is the first interaction that the customer has visually with the website. It is here that most companies place their logo in order to identify the website to the customer. This will also be the position of the logo for ABC Company. The next place that the customer interacts with is the center of the website. This information will also be used strategically by ABC Limited. It will be here that ABC Limited would project its special offers that will be intended to lure the customers. This layout is quite similar to other websites of the same genre. This is an important consideration since most professional websites are built on nearly the same wireframe. These standard designs are built to reassure the customer that the website is professional and to make navigation easier. Most customers are used to the same layout and they expect others to carry the same layout. Totally unique wireframes confuse the customers and they tend to escape the website earlier (Kelly, 2007). On the left side of the web page, a vertical text menu would appear. This would contain the main categories of products sold by ABC Limited. This would make navigation easier for the customers. This menu would have rollover buttons. When the customer would place his cursor over the different categories, a rollover slide would open which would reveal the subcategories. On the upper right hand corner of the website, a horizontal menu would be placed. This would be mainly for registered users. This would include buttons such as Login, shopping cart, My Account, My Wishlist, Live Chat and also the search option. The lower bottom half of the best would contain advertisements of the website. These would be designed to improve trust among the customers for the website. This would be done by advertising about the companys reverse logistics program, its focus on understanding customers security in online transactions etc. At the end of the website, copyrights of the website would be declared along with the address, phone number, email address and other pertinent details. ABC Limited would also outsource some components of the website. Outsourcing offers a number of advantages for the company. It allows the company to focus on its core product while at the same time it allows the company to hand over components of its operation to specialized companies that have a better prospect of dealing with the outsourced components. In the case of ABC Limited, the company would outsource its offline promotion and customer service department . The company, for the purpose of its E-commerce initiative, plans on operating a fully functional IT department. This department will overlook all components of the online operation from strategy to execution. This will include design, implementation, content and service development, etc. The promotion of the website would be outsourced to an advertising agency skilled at handling the job. The customer representative department would also be outsourced since it is highly labor intensive and can help in saving significant costs for the company (Scott, 2006). Part 2: Consumer Information Processing Consumer Information Processing is a process by which a stimulus is received, interpreted, stored in memory, and later retrieved (Durkin and Elliehausen, 2011). The information processing is completed in five stages: Exposure, Attention, Comprehension and perception, Yielding and acceptance, and Retention. Each day, customers are exposed to a variety of stimulus or advertisements that want to draw the customer in but not all of them gain the attention of the customer. This then results in the failure of the company that is unable to draw the customer in. For a company to be successful, it needs to ensure that all parts of the consumer information processing is complete as per its intention. ABC Limiteds intention is to draw customer to try the product and become regular customers. This will be attained through the five stages. In order to expose the customer to the website, different kinds of promotion would be conducted; both online and offline promotion. Offline promotion would be done through newspapers, billboards, an d other outdoor promotion. Offline promotion ensures a physical presence of the online store and makes the brand appear more serious to the average consumer (Babej, 2014). Online promotion would help direct the customer to open up the webpage when they browsing. It should be noted that customers are exposed to thousands of brands in a week and this makes them a little resistant to traditional advertising. Therefore in order to get the customer, the advertising should attract the attention of the customer. Customers would be attracted when they see something that will connects with them on a personal level. In terms of shopping, customers are attracted towards a discount or a special offering. The website would advertise its best products or discounted products to the customers. It would also offer a money back guarantee on many of its best seller products. The website would offer 10 percent discount to registered customers. Once customers register to the website, they would be given promotional offers on their email address. These offers would expire in the next 7 days. This would speed the buying process. Acceptance of the customers can be evaluated based on the amount of registered customers. If ABC Limited receives a surge of registered users, then it could assimilate that the advertising is working. Promotion is also done to bring traffic into the website. This would help improve the companys presence in Google search. Once ABC Limited has increased its number of registered users, it can use this to its advantage. It can send emails to its users in order to attract them into buying a few of the products. However, these emails should not be too frequent to be considered as spam by the users. Special offers can be send through emails. The main aim would be to bring traffic to the website and prompt users to buy. Retention of the customer can be achieved through great after sales service. The companys policy of reverse logistics would increase customer confidence in trying out the product. The company would also have a good team of sales representatives that would be available through live chat. These representatives would help the customers in all parts of the buying- from buying decision to after sales services. The attitude of these representatives would help to retain the customer and attract him further. Part 3: Service Quality  As a company that deals with both products and services, the aim of ABC Limited is to attract and retain a substantial customer base. The previous section of this report dealt with attracting customers, this part of the report will address how the company aims at retaining its customers through the five dimensions of quality which are discussed below. Tangibles Tangibles refers to the appearance of the company including its physical locations, its personnel and other physical attributes (William and Ferrell, 2012). In the case of ABC Limited, it would create a professionally designed website that would take into consideration that standard mode of developing an ecommerce website. The company would also assure that its sales representatives are highly professional. The company would also provide customers with the option of tracking down their consignment at different stages of the transportation process. This would help develop trust and credibility of the company. Reliability This refers to the companys ability to provide accurate products and services to its customers. The promise of superior service would here be evaluated by the customer. This would be achieved by creating a quality assurance department that would be required to monitor that the products which reaches the customers is perfect in terms of quality and demand. The QAD department would also evaluate whether the customers expectations are being met through regular feedback from the customer. Responsiveness ABC Limited should be willing to help out the customers by being communicative. Here the companys call center would have to be quite vigilant in taking calls from all customers and helping them out in all matters. Customer questions, queries and even complaints should be promptly handled. The option of live chat would be extremely helpful. The QAD department would keep a regular check on the sales representatives to assure good responsiveness level. Assurance The company should be able to assure the customer that it is a legitimate company and would not swindle the customer in any way. Assurance will be achieved through the companys policy of reverse logistics. The company would also install security parameters so that the customers personal details are not leaked. Information regarding these parameters would be available to the registered customers to increase assurance level. Empathy Empathy can be achieved by truly connecting with the customer on a personal level. This would be achieved by handling complaints and queries effectively. The sales representative should be trained in such a manner that he conveys his care to the customer. Empathy can also be achieved by keeping a track of customers wish list and purchases. When similar offerings or products are available, customers could be sent direct emails regarding them about the offer. Conclusion Designing an effective website requires planning at different stages of development and implementation. When designing a website, it is important to keep the end customer in mind. The company should design the website in such a manner that it is approachable for the customer and prompts him into at least browsing through the entire website. References Babej, M. 2014, How Jumia is adapting E-Retail to Africa, Forbes, Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcbabej/2014/06/16/how-jumia-is-adapting-e-retail-to-africa/ [Accessed 15 July, 2014] Ferell, O. C. and Pride, W. M. (2012) Marketing, Ohio: Cengage Learning Durkin, R. and Elliehausen, G. (2011) Truth in Lending: Theory, History, and a Way Forward, NY: Oxford University Press Kelly, D. (2007) The Secrets of Website Persuasion, New Zealand: Maruki Books Kerr, C. and Keats, J. (2009) The Essential Guide to Flash CS4, NY: Apress Scott, M. D. (2006) Scott on Outsourcing: Law and Practice, NY: Aspen Publishers Online Read More