You Do Websites?
An example of technology focus at the peril of business results
My father was an auditor at a large global accounting firm, helping innovative biotech and high-tech companies go public, about as far from your neighborhood “tax guy” as possible. Yet, whenever he told people he was in the accounting profession, they would smile knowingly and say something like “You must hate April 15th” (which is the day US income taxes are due). After a few years of trying to explain what he really did, he now merely smiles and nods, having given up on trying to elucidate the differences between tax and audit work.
Being associated with technology, I find myself in a similar set of circumstances. While I deal with CIO-level businesspeople and am concerned primarily with the strategic underpinnings of a corporate IT organization, as soon as I mention technology people light up and say “Do you do websites?” While I find this as distasteful as Da Vinci might if you had asked “Hey Lenny, can you paint my bathroom?” there is a redeeming element by way of example in this story.
Nearly everyone knows the web, and it is one of the few endearing technologies that have survived the heady days of the 1990’s with its reputation and luster intact. What is dangerous about the aura of wonder surrounding the web is that generally sensible businesspeople occasionally forget all the rules surrounding marketing, effective copy writing and customer targeting that instantly come to mind with any other communication medium. From the amateur blogger who opens a blog with great excitement, posting dry accounts of the mundane with poor spelling and atrocious grammar and then wondering why no one visits, to the CIO who writes a large check for a revamp of the corporate website applying novel technologies rather than investigating customer value, subsequently watching page views drop, the technology of the web alone will never rule the day with customers.
One of the great benefits of the expansion of the internet is the increasing level of access to information it provides, but on the other side of the coin is a great peril. Your message must now compete against thousands of others, and your customers can switch off or visit a competitor faster than you can say HTML. The novelty of the medium has worn thin, and while the existence of a website was enough of an asset to gain favor with customers five years ago, now they actually want some value from that website in addition to the basic expectations of a modern and well-designed site. Once you pass a minimum threshold of good design principles and basic functionality, the content and presentation of your products or message are what will win a customer, not that snappy soundtrack and snazzy graphic flying about the screen.
Whether it is a website or a highly advanced enterprise software package costing hundreds of millions of dollars, the business that forgets technology is merely a means to an end puts itself at great peril. If you hear an employee or advisor instantly recommend a technology to fix a business problem, or find yourself doing the same, table the technology discussion and look to the root of the problem at hand, in a self-imposed “tech free zone.” If customers are complaining about your website, look first at the content and value provided to your customer from their perspective, and follow the rules you would with any product, online or physical. Only when you have a solid business solution to a problem and roadmap to its implementation should you begin a technology discussion on how to most effectively implement that solution.