What does it take to do business online? Fundamentally it takes a product or service, competitive pricing, an attractive usable interface, traffic and the ability to convert a portion of that traffic into sales. This sounds straightforward and, if not easy, at least doable. However many business online have implemented all of these prerequisites but still fail to convert visitors into sales. One of the most important missing ingredients often is ‘credibility’. Credibility is one of those intangibles that is difficult create and even more difficult to measure. Precisely because it is so difficult to communicate exactly how to create or measure it, credibility is often overlooked. This oversight can come at a considerable cost. Credibility can go a long way to answering key questions such as ‘Do I BELIEVE in you, your product, your site?’, ‘Are you trustworthy, are you real, can I give you my credit card in good faith?’, ‘What exactly is it I’m buying?’ and ‘Will I get what I paid for?’

Roam4Free.ie launched there new mobile roaming sim product recently and Pat asked for a review of the new site. I thought I would take this opportunity to look at the issues that commonly plague technology startup sites, particularly when they are trying to transact online.

Provisos - Let’s take as a given for the moment that Roam4Free.ie have a good product - it sounds great from what I’ve heard (particularly in light of my mobile bill for the Christmas period when I was abroad!) Let’s also assume that they have done their homework on pricing. Finally lets assume they will get to grips with generating traffic to the site and optimizing the site for search engines. So how does their new site stack up and what do they need to consider as they revise the site for roll out of the next iteration?

Lets look at the home page of the site -

Design Function
Brand Design is a subjective matter and I’m going to leave well enough alone - I’m confident that the site design and framework will evolve over time. So what are the practical site design issues in terms of how it impacts on Roam4Free.ie’s conversion rates and credibility?

The first page must communicate the value proposition of the product (the pitch), secondly it must lead smoothly to the purchasing workflow (the sales process) and finally as this is a new brand (which as a consumer I don’t either know or trust) this page must also help to convince me that Roam4Free.ie are a reputable company who will supply the goods they are offering in a timely and trustworthy manner. So how does this page fair in terms of these aims?

1. The Pitch
I’m a big believer in simplicty and this page is a little too busy for my taste however that is subjective I know so instead I will focus on aspects relating to
converting traffic. The background colour behind the ‘pitch’ for the product on this page and the next page is distracting and obscures the key information it is trying to impart. I would drop that busy blue background.

This is a simple pitch that needs to be clarified. What is the pitch? I need it explained in simple easily understood language:
As far as I can determine there are two main selling points

1. Networks charge fees to recieve calls when roaming - (for example did you know that typically €x per minute for O2 when you go to Spain) With a Roam for Free sim you can receive calls for free when you are in 65 countries - see the list here.

2. When roaming abroad your network will charge exorbitant rates when you make a call (for example did you know that typically €x per minute for O2 when you call an Irish number when you are in Spain) With a Roam4Free sim you can make calls for only 45c per minute when you are in 115 different countries - see the list here.

2. The Sales Process
There appear to be three products on the site:

1. The Sim card.
2. Additional credit
3. An unblocking service for mobile phones that have been locked by the network.

The sales process needs to be simple. Currently it’s confusing as you have separated the unblocking service from the other two services. As a consumer I’m not really interested in why you think these are seperate departments or whatever the rationale is - they are all things you are trying to sell me and/or that I might be looking for. Make it obvious and don’t make me click all over the site to figure it out! These should be clearly listed as the products (with clear and comprehensive descriptions) and the focus of the site should aim to direct me to the purchasing process. This would allow you to have one ‘buy now’ icon on the right as a focus of the site (instead of the confusing 2 buttons currently).

The animation of the sim cards is fine but it takes up a lot of real estate on the page and at the very least they should be clickable leading the customer to the purchase of the product - which after all is the name of the game.

There needs to be a defined userflow to the sales process. So the pitch and any other mentions of the product should link to the product page in the online store which then should have enough information to facilitate conversion.

Credibility
This is a factor that is hard to define but the first step should be to tidy up any of the things that distract and detract from your credibility. None of these are “big” issues but they are greater than the sum of their parts in terms of their effect on the consumers perception of your brand.

First of all it’s good practice to have uniform actions from object types (and these should conform to what the consumer is used to on other sites). So I expected the dropdown on the Where page to do something similar to the dropdown on the Call Rate page and take me to the details of the service in that particular country - so I was surprised when nothing happened.

There is a small glitch on the FAQ page - The third question on the FAQ page is too long and on my screen and Firefox is bleeding over into the nav area for the feedburner.

The contact us form is devoid of any credibilty and would make me think that you are operating out of a garage in Nigeria!

This needs some work to make me think this is a ‘real’ and trustworthy company with whom I would do business. Phone scams abound therefore it will be important for you to differentiate yourself - have an address in the real world, a phone number and a skype me option as well as detailing when you are likely to respond.
The purchasing process: Currently this is a 2 step process. The first step asks for you details on the Roam4Free.ie and then the next page asks for your credit card details on the pay and shop site. It is not a good idea to ask for any customer details on an page that is not on a secured server and it’s not a good idea to have 2 clicks where one will do. You will inevitably lose shoppers between these 2 clicks. It’s also best practice to alert the user to the fact that you are re-directing to Pay and Shop ‘as this will protect your credit card details’ etc etc rather than just dumping you into pay and shop. Finally the pay and shop page doesn’t replicate the site exactly for me (the after burner area is blank and the definition of the body has disapeared. I’d also like to see a big lock and this is a secure transaction notice. The page title is ‘untitled’ rather than ‘Secure Roam4Free Shop’ or whatever.

The other factor is that you have not given me enough comfort in general so I would be unlikely to purchase. There is no mention of delivery charge - is this free? If so you should trumpet it (otherwise I will assume you are going to stiff me for it at the end of the process). Reviews of the product would help greatly - particularly from someone in the public eye.

In the purchasing process for the unblocking service, the fact that this is billed in a different currency to the rest of the site leaves a big credibility gap.

In terms of tell a friend - Roam4Free.ie are obviously very savvy in terms of viral marketing (well they’ve got me linking to them and auditing their site!) so why not ‘tell a friend’ and we’ll credit your account to make it worth doing?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 5:09 am and is filed under General Chatter, Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.