Why don't retailers care about customer experience?

Call me a cranky usability person tonight - I don't care. My gripe is about the tiniest of customer experience issues: the icky, sticky, stickers often found in the most unusable positions on tangible goods like kitchen appliances and gifts such as photo frames.

I purchased a wonderful new steaming pot to serve my husband fresh vegetables, with summer and the beckon of farm-fresh veggies found at roadside stands and farmers markets. Visions of perfectly steamed broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus being served on gleaming china on a beautiful candlelit table are the fantasies of Suzy Homemakers everywhere, right? So I bring my perfect pot home, only to discover that there are rudely affixed price stickers on all of the items in this single purchase. On the bottom of the pan, there are two stickers, one with two pieces of gooey tape attached. Now, it doesn't take a usability genius to figure out one should not put paper, stickers and tape directly onto a stovetop burner, does it? Then there was the sticker on the steaming portion, which got down into the little holes. Then the sticker on the lid, plus the sticker on the inside of the pot, telling me to wash it before use. Wow... so glad someone was looking out for me there!!!

By the time I got to the lid, attempting to lift the corner of the fourth sticker with my $50 manicure, I was cursing up a storm, and I wondered.... who makes these idiotic decisions? I have wondered this many times, because it seems like these precious price stickers are always, I repeat, always, placed in just the precise spot of most inconvenience for a customer who actually wants to purchase the item and take it home.

Take for example, a lovely photo frame. People purchase these all the time, especially for weddings, and you envision the bride's delight over the perfect silver or crystal frame surrounding her pretty wedding photo. Where is the sticker of doom usually attached? The left or right hand corner, and when you remove it, there is a big pile of goo on the glass. Once again, very little brainpower is required when making the decision about where to place the price sticker to help the customer, who should be the object in mind when designing packaging, or pricing items, or placing any kind of note, memo, label, instructions, etc. on anything someone is going to buy.

So why is the pooch screwed at the point of purchase? I have no idea, but my annoyed and highly agitated mind would sure love to know the psychological process of how some people arrive at the inverse decision of what is helpful to the customer.

Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem. If you need to know how to remove irritating stickers, here are some tips. Good luck! 

And if you're a retailer and just can't figure out on your own, the optimal placement for a price sticker, label, etc., please feel free to give me a call. I would be most happy to save others from this ridiculously unnecessary annoyance!

Rainbow Mum online

I recently did a quick project for a wonderful woman who has a son with Asperger's Syndrome. She is very active with other mothers in her community whose children have autism-related conditions, and wanted to reach a larger audience of mothers so they can band together and help each other. 

Check out the Rainbow Mum site and branding, and if you know anyone whose children or family members live "on the spectrum", send them over!

Can a company "own" a color?

Having been a brand designer for many years, I have gone to great lengths at time to differentiate or do something unique so that a brand will be noticed in the busy world of imagery we are daily bombarded with.

But this time, I think a company has gone too far. Duetsche Telekom, who own the worldwide T-Mobile brand, have told a blog site called Engadget Mobile that they must stop using the color magenta, because apparently, T-Mobile have decided they own Magenta. That disgusts me, because in this case, Engadget has done nothing to mimic the T-Mobile brand other than use a color scheme of turquoise and magenta, on a site where they discuss mobile technology from many manufacturers, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, etc. They don't use a similar font, or have a similar design, or compete in any way with the T-Mobile brand.

At SigmaFlow, I went to great lengths to create a brand that was unlike any of our closest competitors. They all used blue, so we used green (and some blue.) If any of them had done something, aside from mimic our features, to compete with the brand, I would have addressed it by updating our brand, or in some other way. But to send a company a hand-delivered legal letter demanding that they cease and desist using a color on their site that someone arbitrarily feels they "own" is going too far, in my opinion.

Engadget has posted the letter in its entirety, and it is worth a read. The arrogance portrayed in the suggestion that T-Mobile would be "willing to work out an appropriate phase-out procedure for the color magenta" particularly has me riled. I hope Engadget will not yield their usage of the color magenta. Colors can't be owned, folks. Design a great brand, give awesome customer service and let the chips fall where they may.

Brand Changes

Sometimes, despite our best intentions, we get our brand wrong. And after much deliberation, I've discovered this is the case with my own company.

To understand how this could happen requires some background. I moved to Kansas, to get married in the fall of 2007. My husband is wonderful, we are compatible, and the occasional princess treatment he bestows on me is like a breath of fresh air. However, he lives in a very small town, and that is not something I am used to, having lived in Houston and Dallas all of my adult life. Even as a pre-teen, I longed to "go to the big city" someday. I am a little too reliant on conveniences and services provided by others to fully appreciate living without them.

And yet I am, in this town of only 3500 people. Not having made a move like this, ever, I think I have been struggling with what to do, how to market my business, who will my clients be, etc. and I ended up making some wrong decisions that I am now going to reverse. I came up with the concept of "Hometown Marketing" because I intended to try to reach out locally to the small businesses in this area, and help them get online, do print design and promotions, etc. It would help me meet people here, I told myself, because I'm a very social girl.

Unfortunately, though those things may have been nice to do, it's not where my designing passion lies. I love to design software. A web site is nice too, but there's something about working with software developers and marketing pro's in a collaborative effort, to create something truly awesome, that customers use and give us feedback on, that makes me feel fulfilled. And of course, those are the leads and potential audience I have been talking to... but then, there is this "hometown" brand.

It just doesn't fit. In trying to mold myself to fit into my new situation, I've taken away the "brand personality" that enabled me to successfully communicate my message to prospective software and web design clients in the past.

So, I am returning to my beloved "Fresh ID" brand and this site, my email, my resume site will all be changing. Don't worry, I'll keep this domain and email for a while to make sure I don't miss any messages and people can find me. Over the next month or so I hope to launch the new site, along with an updated resume instead of the separate sites I've maintained for some time. I have always run a "Fresh" company, since becoming a design and user experience consultant some years ago, because it fits what I love and what I do. It feels right to make this change.

A costly lesson, but since I am the branding professional, the only cost to me is the time it will take to redo everything. But I believe it is the right thing to do, so I'm making the investment. I would urge anyone reading this to think about your own brand. Does it fit your company? Can it help you reach your goals? Does your intended audience connect with it? Look at your web site traffic - really analyze it. I did, and that is part of what led me to the conclusion this brand is not hitting the mark. Analyze your phone conversations and sales presentations... do you spend too much time simply trying to explain what your company does? Branding is so important, because it is the foot you lead with, whether you realize it or not.

Make sure your brand represents you well, and selling to the right customer will happen more organically, with less effort and more satisfaction all around.

Affordable Search Engine Ads with Microsoft's adCenter

Most of my larger clients use Google Adwords, and complain about the cost and lack of conversions from clicks, which is a common complaint for any and all of the search engine advertising or affiliate ad programs.

But I recently noticed at one of my webhosts, Go Daddy, that I had a $25 credit for Microsoft's adCenter. I had not used this service before, but after setting up a quick trial and reading a bit about it online, I am pretty pleased with it. Ads are set up to be found using MSN's Live Search. I've had just under 2,000 impressions in a day and a half, and have had about 6 clicks. You only pay if someone clicks your ad. I've used half of my monthly budget, which I set at a pretty low $3o because I'm just testing this service out right now. I set my cost-per-click set pretty high so I would come up in the first couple of pages.

Though the clicks might seem small for the number of impressions, don't underestimate what those impressions can do. In advertising an unknown business, people usually need to see something anywhere from 3-7 times before taking action. That's why in an infomercial 30 minutes long, there will be repeated opportunities to call. The first or second time, a prospective customer may balk. But by the 3rd or 4th time, they'll pick up the phone and place that order. Or, they may wait until the infomercial ends and visit the web site, or they might call the next time they see the ad on TV. They are in the "warming up" process of getting comfortable and familiar with you. Those little ad impressions can work the same way. After doing multiple searches, and not clicking on you, a potential buyer is growing more comfortable with your name and offering sitting over there on the side of the screen. And the impressions don't cost a thing.

It's only $5 to get an account started, and there are tons of customization options like location, gender and age, because of the wealth of Microsoft's historical data, which is not something Google has in the same depth about their users, from the reviews I found.

The numbers for MSN are apparently lower than Google's traffic (it is the numero uno search engine after all) but, some have said in reviews that they feel the conversions and click-throughs are better with MSN, because the traffic is more targeted.

As far as the interface, it's okay. I wish it were a bit more intuitive and I didn't have to go back-and-forth so much. It is a bit difficult to learn the system of changing bid amounts for your individual keyword costs. I never quite feel "solid" that the change has been made until I leave that page and come back to it, to refresh because it does not refresh the page after saving changes (a no-no, in the majority of cases, from an interface design perspective.) In short, I have many persnickety annoyances with the gui and wish they would hire me to redesign it BUT, as an ad service, they do seem to be getting the job done, and I am pleased with my mini-test so far and plan to continue.

Warning to Mac users, don't even try to access the site using Safari - half the interface won't show up and it's very confusing. I've been accessing it using either Explorer on my PC, or the latest version of Firefox on the Mac (the version I had installed didn't work either.) Yet another interface complaint, in this day and age of rocking Mac products!

I would recommend my small and locally-oriented clients (such as a restaurant) give Microsoft's adCenter a try. It's a very inexpensive way to dip your toes in the search engine waters, and you may be very pleased with the results.

In Search of the Perfect Blog

I am in the process of testing three different blogging services: Blogger, which the Hometown Marketing blog is created with, Typepad, and Squarespace. 

I also investigated Wordpress, but since I want the service to host my blogs, rather than deal with putting everything on my own server (right now) I ruled them out because you can't add advertising.

My goal is to figure out which blogging platforms I would personally recommend to business vs. community-oriented clients. As we get blogs set up and in search engines, etc. I hope to be able to make some concrete recommendations. Right now though, what I've discovered so far is that none of the services I'm investigating meet my desires 100%. 

If you use blog software you love, do share!

The Color of Snail Mail

Clients who know me well inevitably end up realizing I am passionate about colors. And then the teasing begins! But color is something I work with everyday as a designer... it affects people on conscious and sub-conscious levels, cues users to do things, guides people where they need to be, and can make an ordinary experience extraordinary.

The Martha Stewart preferred palette of muted bright colors in these stamps are just stunning. The designs are proof that math can be beautiful - note the pleasing symmetry and geometry. I love them! Too bad they can't be used for sending American snail mail. :-(

Welcome to Hometown Marketing!

My name is Kris Colvin, and I'm the owner of Hometown Marketing, a design and marketing firm for businesses large or small. My goal is to help other business owners present their products and services professionally and with a style all their own.

Right now, I'm redesigning the corporate web site I originally designed in 2004 for Vertec Polymers, a plastic shape manufacturing company in Houston, Texas. The overall brand guidelines will stay the same, but the site needs to be updated to reflect the companies growth and offer a more sophisticated design, which should be online this month.