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clients having trouble ordering
VanishingAmerica
Registered Users Posts: 14 Big grins
Am I the only one whose clients always have trouble navigating Smugmug?:confused
Every single client I have has difficulty ordering, tagging, sharing, commenting, browsing, etc. All of them.
They have always had difficulties, even with the old site. It's very disconcerting because I am losing orders, losing client face time on the site, and wasting my own time explaining how to order to every client.
It's a great site, but even I have difficulty navigating it sometimes. And, I have to admit, the ordering process (though very detailed and useful) is not the most user-friendly.
Can you tell me who designed the interface? Was it an IT professional or a designer with experience making websites user-friendly? (Knowing who designed the interface won't fix it, but it will help me understand why it is not as user-friendly as it could be.)
Also, is there any progress on Smugmug creating a video showing customers how to order?
I made one for my clients just before Smugmug changed its interface and haven't had time to update it.
If you guys are too busy, uninterested or unable to make a short instructional video clip, I'll make one and share it with Smugmug... for a price, of course. :wink
Something has to be done.
If I'm the only one with these client issues, then I need help figuring out how to make ordering easier for my clients. If other professionals' clients are comfortable with the site, I need to know what I'm doing wrong.
However... if I'm not the only one, something needs to be done to make the site easier to navigate.
NOTE:
It's not just my money being lost here... Smugmug makes money off of my sales, so every time one of my customers leaves the site because they can't figure out how to do something, Smugmug is losing money, too.
Every single client I have has difficulty ordering, tagging, sharing, commenting, browsing, etc. All of them.
They have always had difficulties, even with the old site. It's very disconcerting because I am losing orders, losing client face time on the site, and wasting my own time explaining how to order to every client.
It's a great site, but even I have difficulty navigating it sometimes. And, I have to admit, the ordering process (though very detailed and useful) is not the most user-friendly.
Can you tell me who designed the interface? Was it an IT professional or a designer with experience making websites user-friendly? (Knowing who designed the interface won't fix it, but it will help me understand why it is not as user-friendly as it could be.)
Also, is there any progress on Smugmug creating a video showing customers how to order?
I made one for my clients just before Smugmug changed its interface and haven't had time to update it.
If you guys are too busy, uninterested or unable to make a short instructional video clip, I'll make one and share it with Smugmug... for a price, of course. :wink
Something has to be done.
If I'm the only one with these client issues, then I need help figuring out how to make ordering easier for my clients. If other professionals' clients are comfortable with the site, I need to know what I'm doing wrong.
However... if I'm not the only one, something needs to be done to make the site easier to navigate.
NOTE:
It's not just my money being lost here... Smugmug makes money off of my sales, so every time one of my customers leaves the site because they can't figure out how to do something, Smugmug is losing money, too.
America is changing... fast.
www.VanishingAmerica.net
www.VanishingAmerica.net
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Comments
SmugMug Support Hero
The premise seems to be that a customer would be willing to sit through watching an instructional video simply in order to learn how to place an order. I would never do such a thing, I would find another place to shop. I can't imagine a person who could be bothered with that.
Please check out my gallery of customisations for the New SmugMug, more to come!
I would have to agree, being presented with a video of 'how to order' would send me to another photographer in a heartbeat.
Do you have a link to your site - the one in your signature is for something else. If your clients find it hard to navigate your site then you may want to think about redesigning it. There will always be computer illiterate clients but generally speaking I think the process is pretty straight forward.
Then the onus is on you to make it obvious they are for sale, that is not down to Smugmug - beyond the big green 'Add to Cart' button what do you expect them to do? Does it actually say anywhere on your Homepage or Contact page 'These photographs are for sale?' If it is not obvious within a few seconds of browsing your site then you need to make sure it is.
The difficulty seems to be with Smugmug's ordering platform. I do have a few customers who have been able to order through the site, but every one of them (every single one of my hundred or so clients) have had to contact me because they got confused with Smugmug's ordering process and navigation. I constantly get questions on how to select favorites, how to crop, how to choose the right size, etc.
Take a look at my site and see if it's something I did or if it seems fine to you. www.holtwebb.smugmug.com
I've been so unhappy with this process that I am currently setting up a site with Zenfolio. And, let me tell you, that's about as easy and flexible as I've seen (without resorting to code). It's incredibly user-friendly both for me to build and for my clients to view and order. It's possible I'll run into some issues down the road, but as of now, it's exactly what I was hoping it would be... and, more importantly, what I was hoping Smugmug could be.
Nobody so far has been able to give me any insight into why my customers have so many problems with ordering. No help has been forthcoming from the "Heroes" and no users have been able to shed any light. All the "Heroes" have told me is that they are sorry I'm having trouble. Nobody from SM has actually addressed my problem. I simply don't understand how this problem isn't more common.
And, by the way, if anyone is considering suggesting that I have stupid clients, rest assured that the majority of them are professionals (doctors, attorneys, architects, real estate agents, etc.) who have ordered from other online sites (including Zenfolio-hosted sites) without issue.
www.VanishingAmerica.net
I'm not talking about making it known that my work is available. All my clients know my work is for sale. That's why they are visiting my site. For the sake of this discussion, I'm skipping over the unsolicited visitor and concentrating on my own clients who have a direct link to their own private galleries.
www.VanishingAmerica.net