Helpful Navigation
If I asked you where to find something on your website, would you be able to tell me? If you tell a customer that something is hosted on your website, would they be able to find it?
We all know that when asked where something is in the store, we should walk the customer to the item instead of rudely pointing in the general direction. The same holds true for when we send somebody to our website.
If I were to tell you that all past issues of Books & Whatnot are archived on my website, you’d probably be able to find it. But if I told you that all of the past issues of Books & Whatnot are archived at booksandwhatnot.com, and you can get to them by clicking on the “email archive” link along the top navigation bar where black background is just above the white space, you’d have a better chance of finding it.
It’s also incredibly helpful to have easy to use URLs, like http://booksandwhatnot.com/email-archive to see the earlier mentioned example. If this isn’t possible with your current technology, a URL shortener like http://Bit.ly can make things easier to find. Simply grab the URL of the most popular pages of your webiste, and create a memorable short like for each one; something like http://bit.ly/bwarchive.
If the person you’re helping happens to be on the phone, ask if they currently have access to the internet. If so, then navigate them through your site, “walk” them where they need to go, and point out helpful things along the way. Just saying “you can find it on our website” can feel like the equivalent of a rude finger pointing when you’re in unfamiliar territory. And not necessarily the index finger.
