If you have a website and have not yet read the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance to the new EU cookie laws then we suggest you do so. Website owners / publishers have until May 26th 2012 to comply. The ICO has powers to fine website owners up to £500,000 for serious breaches!

This law isn’t going to go away and cannot just be ignored. The Information Commissioner has been clear that he will take a practical and proportionate approach to enforcing these rules where organisations are making the effort to comply, but if you are not…..

So, what’s the law about? You can get some good simple guidance form our friends at Roxburgh Milkins. Their blog about the new cookie law covers it simply and gives some good advice, but in simple terms:

• Cookies are small text files used by web developers to perform certain functions on a website. They are not anything like a virus but they can include some information about a user and their activity on a site. So because they can allow websites to track visitors and can be utilised by advertisers to target ad campaigns they can - perhaps, sometimes - be regarded as a privacy threat. Cookies are actually specific to the device a visitor is using to view the site - like the browser or mobile phone. Almost all websites use cookies in some way or another, and every page you visit in those sites writes cookies to your ‘computer’ and receives them back from it.
  
  
• So, now, any user has to be “provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the storage of, or access to, that information”.

Before the new law a website owner / publisher could ‘assume consent’ to cookies, place cookies on a user’s hard drive and collect data on the basis that the user had not opted-out. Now the website owner / publisher must expressly obtain any users’ informed consent and opt-in before using any cookies unless the cookie is ‘strictly necessary’ for the operation of the site. This is not a get out. It means that, for example, a cookie used to remember the goods a user wishes to buy when they proceed to the checkout or add goods to their shopping basket is allowed but that a cookie used to recognise a user when they return to a website is not.

The question is, what does this actually mean for you?

Well, firstly you have to know whether your site uses any cookies (and as noted above, most do in some way) and what those cookies are for and there are a number of things to consider:

• Client side cookies such as some used by Google Analytics can be found with relative ease using the details you can find in a browser or using a plugin.
  
  
• Server side cookies such as those used for a shopping basket will need your web development team to accurately list and identify these from the server side source code.
  
  
• 3rd party cookies such as those used for Google Analytics or by Facebook and Twitter utilities or other services you may have on your site have to be identified by them. So, for example Google has a whole section about Google Analytics cookies.
  
  
• Understand the degree to which each cookie impacts your website's visitors' privacy and consider how necessary each cookie is, whether any can be removed, etc.
  
  
• Decide how you are going to describe the cookies you use so that your site visitors can easily find the information to understand and give ‘informed consent’. The ICO privacy page may be a useful guide here.
  
  
• Decide on a solution for obtaining consent. The ICO gives some guidance on this from page 13 onwards of their Guidance PDF.

Post written by Richard Hill

A recent US study by Accenture, comScore, and dunnhumbyUSA shows a direct correlation between Consumer Packaged Goods* (CPG) brand website usage and in-store purchase behaviour.

The research showed that visitors to CPG brand websites complete 41 percent more transactions than non-visitors and spend 37 percent more on the brand and 53% more on product category in retail stores than non-visitors.

Using the comScore-dunnhumbyUSA database, the study examined ten individual food and household product brands with annual sales between $40 million and $3 billion and had at least 100,000 unique visitors to their websites and as many as 2.3 million per month, so we are talking some fairly big brands here. The study covered September 2010 - February 2011.

The length of time that visitors spend on a brand's website was found to be a key determinant of their likelihood to buy the brand in retail stores. The study identified three important characteristics of brand websites that are associated with a higher likelihood that visitors will buy the brand in retail stores:

• Brand value messaging that provides a persuasive reason for a website visitor to buy the brand.
• Fresh content updated on at least a weekly basis, such as "pulse surveys", user generated reviews, status on weight loss plans, etc.
• Content that engages visitors. This can include promotions, philanthropic appeals, demonstrations, live chat, apps and games.

Although the study was for CPG and big brands one has got to think that similar conclusions are likely to apply to other categories and business sizes. So now that there is some statistical proof of what many people have long suspected what should retailers be doing?

Well, Laura Davis-Taylor, Vice President, Global Retail Strategy, Creative Realities covered much of it – and I think these points apply to all brands and retailers large or small and in whatever category – when she suggested the following main points, in the 2011 Outlook Guide:

• Convergence of mobile and in-store. Now that apps and handheld solutions are changing the retail shopping experience so a shopper can quickly compare prices, locate competitors, cash in on coupons, read product reviews, receive ‘hyper relevant” incentives based on their history and more, loyalty changes quickly. No one know exactly how this will shake out but we will only be successful if we watch, listen, understand, react and embrace mobile tools in store and add to their value rather than resisting them.
• “Socially empowered” shopping. Facebook now has product favourites and wish lists for anyone’s social network to see and respond to. Groupon has created volume discounting for rallying up friends and peers to buy products with you. Retailers need to learn how to capitalize on social behaviours.
• Personalized in-store communications. For years shoppers have requested better integration between the online experience and the in store experience.
• Digitally-empowered staff. Staff tenure is generally low but all of the rich information a shopper is accessing online can be accessed and utilized for staff to ensure a better shopper engagement, yet very few retailers have done anything with this yet.

More details and PDF downloads can be found at:

• www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-cpg-brands-maximizing-return-digital-investment.aspx
• www.comscore.com/cpg_brands_maximizing_return_digital_investment.
• www.dunnhumby.com/us/cpg-brands-maximizing-return-digital-investment

* Consumer Packaged Goods are those consumed ‘every day’ by the average consumer - ones that need to be replaced frequently. They have high market saturation and low consumer switching costs.

Post written by Richard Hill

Well back to the The Ring O Bells yesterday as I promised in The golden rules of customer service and an example.

Excellent news. The food was very good. Smoked chicken and chorizo salad to start - could quibble about the absolute quality of the salad but very tasty. Hake with capers for the main course - excellent. Good cheese to finish and cheery service throughout.

Show what good customer service can do to rescue a previous poor experience, get you to come back and probably go back again.

Post written by Richard Hill

Service quality is the main reason consumers leave or choose a new a provider. According to Accenture about 53% of people in the United Kingdom switch providers for this reason compared with about 33% of people switching due to price.

It follows, therefore, that the way you handle complaints is crucial. No one likes hearing complaints and it's easy to shrug mentally and think "Oh well, you can't please all the people all the time". Bad mistake as giving complaints your attention and pleasing people one at a time is how you position your business to reap the benefits of good customer service. Research has shown that nearly all customers who have complaints properly resolved are then happy to recommend the business to their friends. Resolving a complaint has also been shown to strengthen the relationship between a business and its customer, with customer loyalty being greater than before the complaint occurred.

In general the golden rules of complaint handling are:

1. Thank the customer for complaining rather than just leaving and then 'bad mouthing you to everyone they know'
2. Put yourself in the place of the customer to have more empathy with them
3. Make it very clear that you are sorry that the problem has happened and that you understand there is a problem
4. Start by believing customer not that it's a rip off
5. Get all the facts and give them time to calm down.
6. Correct the mistake if you can.
7. If you can't then give a discount.
8. Learn from the complaint and take action to stop it happening again.
9. Tell the customer what you are going to do to ensure this.

I was reminded about this recently coming across a superb case of complaint handling.

My wife and I went to The Ring O Bells following the switching on of the Xmas lights recently in Bath. The Ring O Bells recently won the Best Gastropub award at the Bath Good Food Awards 2011, so we were looking forward to a really good meal.

We weren't mega hungry so we ordered 4 starters, some wine and some water, to whit:

• Soup
• Cornish haddock kedgeree with yellow basmati rice, green peas, poached egg and a mild curry sauce
• Pan fried spicy king prawns
• Chicken liver and black pudding salad

Now there was nothing that made the food inedible, it just wasn't that good.

The soup was ok but the kedgeree had a surrounding curry sauce that was still powdery and not fully cooked in and was tepid, the spicy king prawns just weren't spicy, were well overcooked with not just a 'blackened' but a totally burnt flavour and were in a 'watery' oil and the salad had leaves that had gone slightly 'slimy' and rather uninspiring black pudding and rubbery chicken livers.

I'm a wuss and could have let it go but my good lady when asked if it was all ok said, "well, no, not really, it just wasn't very enjoyable". A short conversation as to why ensued and then we asked for the bill. When it cam they had removed the kedgeree, king prawns and chicken liver salad and only asked payment for the soup, water and wine. They also explained that they were unhappy we were unhappy, would look at why the cooking was not up to scratch and would also like us to come back again - which we shall do.

So full marks to the Ring O Bells, though I’m unsure of how happy they will be with the accolade given what has just been written, but hopefully they'll see it as it is - a recommendation.

Post written by Richard Hill

Link: http://realbusiness.co.uk/advice_and_guides/designing-a-great-website-15-expert-tips

This appeared first in Real Business.

Three business owners in the south-west – an online marketing specialist, a commercial photographer and a branding expert – give us their tips for designing a great website.

Richard Hill, internet marketing specialist, owner and founder of Bath web design and development company e-crm.co.uk

1. Targeting

The marketing basics are essential: understand your market and why people shop with you. Brand, price, convenience, location – it's all critical.

2. Shopping experience

From the site's entrance points to product display methods, the whole online experience of your store needs to engage customers. Navigation through the site has to be easy and simple to understand. Help your visitors get from point A to point B without them needing to think how it is supposed to be done. Your site design must be with the customer in mind.

3. Create confidence

Display your delivery charges and options clearly and concisely on your web site, for customers to view before they hit the checkout. Provide your customers with a range, including the option to pay a little extra for a quicker delivery – for instant gratification. Let those who want to browse your site do so and discover your services, without the need for subscriptions or registrations forcing them to share private data. At the checkout, assure shoppers that their private details will not be shared with any third party. Failure to reassure customers at this point will lead to loss of sales and repeat visits to the site. Make sure that data entered isn't then lost when there is an error – another deterrent – make it easy to change and correct things.

4. Start a relationship

Aim to build a long-term relationship with your customers and encourage them to come back to your site. Make it easy to get in touch and ask for help. Good customer service adds real value to the shopper's experience, so provide customer service online which actually resolves customer queries and helps people to buy. When customers buy something from you, ask them if it's okay to put them on your mailing list.

5. SEO and offline marketing

There's no point in having a great looking site with the best products in the world if nobody knows the business exists. Make sure your site is found by the search engines by using good page titles, headings and descriptions. Text is important for SEO, but make sure your site is still presented in the same way in each different browser. Consider what needs to be done in the offline world to raise awareness of your brand and drive people to search for your site or products in the first place.

Tim Gander, commercial photographer and on-site photography trainer to businesses

1. Stock imagery

It may be cheap and cheerful, but that’s also what it will say about your business. And when your designer has finished billing you for the hours spent trawling for suitable images, did it work out cheaper than using a professional?

2. Google Images is not a free photo library

If it’s on the web, someone somewhere owns the copyright for the photo. Beware the unexpected Getty bill for large sums if your'e caught using one of their images illegally.

3. Cheapening your products

Your iPhone pics might look okay on your iPhone and your mate might be quite handy with a camera, but do the results truly match the message you’re trying to convey? Whether you’re selling products or featuring your people, quality images will convey a quality message and people will trust you more. Low resolution and distorted photos are a common problem and, more importantly, damaging for your online sales.

4. Captions

Every image has the ability to carry hidden text and Google can see this data. Help your site's search engine ranking by titling your photos with relevant information.

5. Size does matter

Can visitors to your website view all your images clearly? Displaying them too small will render them useless, but too large and they could appear “blocky” or soft. Also be mindful that using photos too large in file size will slow down the loading of the web page and therefore increase potential for shoppers to make a quick exit.

Andy Fuller, founder of branding and web design agency designbull.co.uk

1. Plan your site

You wouldn't build a house without plans and the same applies to building a website. The terminology used in web design derives from that used in house building eg: "under construction" web holding pages). Wireframes (or skeleton diagrams) are a great way to clearly layout your website and explain your site to others. Having a clear idea of what your site will contain – its navigation and product ranges – will save time and money further down the line.

2. Keep it simple

When a website has too much imagery, text, fonts, links and colours it can be painful viewing (we've all encountered those using yellow Comic Sans font on black backgrounds). By keeping the design simple and not being afraid to use "white space", visitors will be more attracted to your online store; therefore more likely to stay longer and best of all, purchase.

3. Be consistent

The site's theme is important. Decide on this and make sure it follows through each part, featuring the same colours, fonts and alignments, even through the checkout process. Your  company's logo should always be top left, making each page uniform.

4. On brand

It's essential that the design of the site is consistent with your company's offline branding (eg: print and advertising). This includes the tone of voice and style adopted.

5. Think like a customer

When designing a website, put yourself in your audience's shoes. Try to imagine who they are and play to their needs. For example if they're young, using lots of imagery and animation, plus offers will catch their attention. If they are of an older generation, design with large, clearly readable fonts and functional imagery. When designing navigation buttons, make sure they're easy to see and large enough to click using a finger – it's likely that your site will also be accessed via handheld, touchscreen devices such as the iPhone.

Post written by Richard Hill