Your customer’s expectations
Think about companies your customers transact business with online. Buy from them yourself and experience what your customers experience and *then* look at your own. You may be dismayed and surprised with what you find.
Most savvy users expect to make a purchase and almost immediately receive an email as a response. If they’ve purchased software or another downloadable item, the expectation is that download information and credentials will almost immediately arrive.
So today I purchased vBulletin (the #1 forum software) and made the purchase through *their* preferred payment method, PayPal. Probably shame on me for using echeck vs. a credit card, but now PayPal is saying it could take “up to three days” to clear the payment because vBulletin is a “non-US-verified” provider.
Huh? I thought that PayPal being their preferred meant that they’d set this up in advance!
I need this software tonight but am probably screwed. Guess how I feel about vBulletin and doing business with companies outside the US?
About Steve Borsch
Strategist. Learner. Idea Guy. Salesman. Connector of Dots. Friend. Husband & Dad. CEO. Janitor. More here.
Connecting the Dots Podcast
Podcasting hit the mainstream in July of 2005 when Apple added podcast show support within iTunes. I'd seen this coming so started podcasting in May of 2005 and kept going until August of 2007. Unfortunately was never 'discovered' by national broadcasters, but made a delightfully large number of connections with people all over the world because of these shows. Click here to view the archive of my podcast posts.