Companies look at their websites from their own point of view – not from the point of view of their visitors.

We (presumably) know our industry and products inside-out. Chances are we’ve been involved in the design and development of our sites from the word “go.”

This makes it surprisingly easy to overlook how someone without our same knowledge and experience might see things.

If your website is going to help you get customers on the road to delight, not frustration, it needs to be intuitive. By that I mean the second someone lands on your site, they should know exactly what to do and where to go to find what they’re after.

For this, your site architecture is key.

The architecture of your site is essentially the way it’s organized and how each page links together. The ideal architecture is logically and (here’s that word again) intuitively structured. Pages should be quick and easy to find, using the least possible number of clicks.

For small sites, that’s relatively simple. The bigger the site, the more difficult maintaining a logical architecture becomes. Problems tend to get more apparent as sites expand. Webmasters will often add new pages on, instead of taking the time to determine where they will sit best.

It should also be crystal clear upon landing on a page what options the visitor has and where they need to go next.

If in doubt: less is more.

Take the University of Advancing Technology’s website. Central to the homepage is a fast-rotating menu of options.

Yep, you read that right. Those pictures above are all links to different categories on the site, and they rotate (quickly) around that (rightly) bemused-looking man’s head.

One site that might be even worse is luxury brand Hermes’ website.

Its homepage boasts a disjointed clump of menu options, most of which send users to a segregated subdomain.

Best of all, the cursor, which highlights sections of the page as you move, feels clunky and distracting.

Before designing your own site architecture, analyze and learn from successful and intuitive sites in your industry.

Does your site give users all the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision that they feel confident about?

If you’re selling software, does your site lead by explaining how your offering solves customers’ problems?

When this gets overlooked (and it often does), it’s either because:

• 1

  Site owners forget that the details they know about their products aren’t obvious to their customers, or

• 2

  They just don’t realize how important product information is to their customers.

In site design and architecture, less is usually more.

When you’re describing products to customers, the opposite is true.

Take Next.

The site’s product information is minimal. The only information visitors are offered about the jacket below is the fit, color, material, and the fact that it’s dry clean only.

Product details for shirts are worse. Shoes, worse still.

Compare this with Topman, which, for jackets at least, includes key information such as how many pockets and buttons they have and whether they’re single or double-breasted.

If you’re not convinced, think of it like this:

In a store, a customer can pick up and feel an item. They can try clothes on. They can look at labels and assess a product’s quality.

They can’t do any of this online. All they have is the information you give them – so make this information as detailed and helpful as possible. Include full product specifications, quality images that allow customers to view items from all angles and that can be expanded or zoomed in on, and if possible, videos.

You won’t be able to delight your customers, whatever you do, if the product your customers receive differs from their expectations.

Similar rules apply to SaaS companies. Hook visitors in by leading with the most important information – how your product solves a pain point.

Then, elaborate on the product’s features and benefits. On contentmarketer.io we do this using testimonials and by talking visitors through how the product works.

In a great customer/brand relationship, the brand is honest and transparent, and goes above and beyond to offer each customer a truly personalized experience. Think about how you would go the extra mile for the people you care about. You should treat each of your customers in the same way.

Talk to your customers like you would talk to your mother or father-in-law. Be friendly, helpful, and personable. Take control of the conversation and ask questions that will help you get to know them. Most importantly, be polite and keep the language you use clean.

Sure, you should be friendly, but you need to err on the side of caution and avoid saying anything that could possibly offend.

Of course, a relationship is a two-way thing.

Treat a customer well, and in return, that customer may well become a brand advocate. They might not realize this has happened, but chances are their behavior will start to benefit you as they come back and begin to recommend you to others.

This bit is even more important for client-facing companies.

Clients who have a close relationship with the companies they work with tend to stick around longer. I can’t find any stats to back this up, but my own experience shows this to be the case, pretty much every time.

Again, some clients might say that they don’t want relationships with the companies that work for them – they might say they want you to get on with the work and leave them to get on with theirs – but subconsciously, they will be drawn to those who take the time to get to know them over those who don’t.

77% of customers say they don’t want relationships with brands, but 82% of customers have left a brand because of a bad customer service experience and 44% want companies to be more open about their processes and practices.

The fact is, they want a relationship that benefits them. They want the rewards of a relationship, without the work.

What happens when a new customer comes on board? Do they receive a personalized welcome email?

When customers talk to or about you on social media, do you respond?

If a customer asks you a question, do you answer it, then forget about it? Or do you invite the customer to ask further questions?

No relationship can succeed without effective communication. Take every appropriate opportunity to communicate with your customers, and make sure to personalize your side of the conversation. Don’t answer as “the company” – let the customer know who they’re actually talking to.

I’d also recommend companies take steps to encourage open communication by inviting customers into communities like Facebook groups, or by providing them a forum to use on your site.

This will give you the tools needed to turn support tickets into valuable, ongoing conversations.

Customers will create stronger ties with you if they keep seeing the same names and faces. The reason why is simple: we build bonds with people more easily than we build bonds with brands. We also build stronger bonds over time.

If you’re in a B2B, client-facing company, this one’s easy – give each client a dedicated account manager.

In B2C things get a little trickier. But only a little.

You can’t give each customer their own account manager or service representative. What you can do is take steps to humanize your customer service representatives and implement procedures that will ensure the same reps deal with the same customers wherever possible.

• 1

  Include your customer service reps on team pages of your websites (along with a photo and a few facts about them).

• 2

  Ensure that when communicating through company social profiles, they always sign off with their name.

• 3

  Have them reply to emails from their own (company) email account.

• 4

  Integrate your customer service channels so the same reps deal with inquiries across all channels. Avoid having separate teams managing the phones, social media, and so on.

• 5

  When a rep first speaks to a customer about a particular query, ensure they see it through personally until it’s resolved.

Use tools like email marketing and social media to keep your customers in the loop as to what’s going on in your company. Humanize your company. Don’t just talk about your latest sale or investment. Talk about things like:

• New hires

• Fun happenings in the office

• Company events (think Christmas parties)

Buffer is an excellent example of a company that uses updates to engage its customers – its monthly invoices make a point of thanking them.

Don’t just solve your customer’s initial query – dig to find out what else you might be able to help with.

Maybe they called up about a problem using a feature of your product, but they’re actually unsure about the benefits of another feature, and have avoided using it. This is the sort of information we often find out only if we ask the right questions.

Stay on high alert for other information that could enable you to act in a manner that surprises and delights your customers. When I was at When I Work, for example, a customer mentioned how they had never tried a particular brand of candy because it wasn’t available where they lived (in London), so we sent it to them.

This was bound to be a nice surprise but it was more than that – it showed that we listened and that we cared.

Use your blog to educate and delight your customers. Create content that helps them get the most out of your products, but that also helps them in other, related areas, too.

For example, let’s say you offer a tool that helps customers manage their personal finances. It would be natural for your content to educate customers on various ways to manage their money, but you might branch out to content that educates customers on how to make more money, or how to manage tricky areas of their life in general.

Each technique mentioned above can help in the fight to turn customers into brand advocates, but there’s so much more you can do to take your customers from happy, repeat customers, to customers that love and advocate your brand.

Brand advocates are going to talk about you regardless – that’s what makes them an advocate, not a customer. Generally however, they will only really talk about you when prompted.

By rewarding their actions, you can encourage your advocates to actively promote you.

Treat advocates almost like you would a member of staff (just without the salary and healthcare). Offer them preferential rates and sneak previews of new products. You can even invite them to events, or if your brand is large enough (and you have enough advocates) arrange an event just for them.

Walmart calls its brand advocates “Walmart Moms” – they are essentially a group of mommy bloggers who contribute content to the Walmart blog.

Is there scope for you to leverage your brand advocates in a similar way?

Why not ask them if they would be willing to write a blog post for you? You could offer regular writing spots to quality writers and if you have a great relationship with them, you could even let them take the hard work off your hands by giving them their own login for your CMS.

Ask for pictures, too. Encourage them to take photos of themselves (and their friends) using your products, and post them to social media. Go one better, and ask for video, too.