Ten Business Problems
You Can Solve On The Internet
A website works when it solves a problem for the site visitor. Visitors may be prospects, customers, sales reps, distributors, retailers, job hunters, investors or the media.
When you solve a problem for any one of these, you will benefit by increasing sales, satisfying customers, finding new employees or improving investor/media relations. You may also cut costs and expand your business with new product and market opportunities.
During one of our recent seminars, the CEO of a home building company with a billion dollars in annual revenue asked how he could motivate employees to use the company's newly developed intranet. Our answer: employees will use the site if it solves problems for them. If it doesn't, they won't.
We have selected ten business problems as a starting point for discussions about Internet strategy. What is the most important problem you can solve online?
- Help new and existing customers identify your products and services as solutions they want or need.
- Simplify your customer's decision-making process with detailed information, multimedia presentations and product demonstrations.
- Make it easy for customers to do business with you even if they are halfway around the world.
- Provide a 24-hour help desk for existing customers with information resources, FAQs and priority e-mail.
- Help customers gain vital product/industry knowledge via newsletters, online forums and e-seminars.
- Help sales reps, distributors and/or retailers sell more by giving them high quality sales leads.
- Support sales reps with up-to-the-minute product information and marketing materials.
- Automate the information flow for sales reps, distributors and/or retailers with a password protected extranet.
- Help potential employees find out what positions are available and why your company is a great place to work.
- Simplify media and investor research by publishing company information, financial reports and news releases.
Important: It's OK to solve just one. In fact, websites often fail
because they try to solve too many problems at once.
