Don’t Advertise It If You Don’t Use It

Here’s something that I run into once in a while that is pretty irritating. I find this most common on web sites that are set up by businesses that are traditional “brick and mortar” businesses and not so much on sites that are built with the idea of doing a lot of business via the Internet.

I go to these sites most often with the idea of obtaining information, and although the site appears well-designed, user-friendly and seems to encourage me to ask them for information, they never follow up!

A good example is a car dealership whose web site I visited recently seeking information for a part that I need.

I visited the section of their web site for parts and found the option to make an inquiry using the handy contact form they included.

I typed in my query and included my e-mail address as required and submitted my question. It all seemed to work just fine and I did not receive any error messages or other indication that my inquiry was not sent.

Although the web site seems to function properly, the real problem is with the people who are supposed to respond to the inquiry. Do you think I ever received a response? Nope, not a thing.

Here’s a tip for some of the people behind web sites like this: Don’t provide the option for a potential customer to make an inquiry via your web site if your employees are not going to take a few minutes of their time to respond!

It really does not give the potential customer a good impression of your business. In this case, the business in question is a Volvo dealer located and Keene, NH, and perhaps that is part of the problem when one considered what kind of business it is.

There are not a whole heck of a lot of Volvo dealers here in New Hampshire and maybe they don’t have to work too hard for their business and feel they can just ignore a potential customer. What else am I supposed to think when my inquiry is ignored?

In this case I can visit the Volvo dealer in Nashua just as easily as the one in Keene, so guess which one I am inclined to visit? I already have a negative impression of the dealer in Keene thanks to their unresponsive parts department, so a visit to that dealership is not too likely.

Sure, all this web stuff with nifty contact forms looks impressive but if you are not going to actually use it, just remove it from the site, will you? It will be better for your image in the long run.