The importance of really listening to your customers
I recently helped to facilitate a Focus Group evaluation for the Visit Somerset website, with Claire Sully and John Brunsdon from Tickbox Marketing, and found it an absolutely fascinating experience. Budgets can be poured into public sector websites, but how often are users asked for their opinion about the website? During the day we ran three focus groups with different demographics: Young Mothers, Active Retired and 28-40s with no children. We conducted question and answer sessions, undertook individual web usability tests, filmed vox pops and made some surprising discoveries.
The way we book and research holidays online is rapidly evolving : site navigation needs to be as straightforward as possible, search engines within sites need to deliver relevant content quickly, lovingly crafted text is scanned rather than read, website images are important but their size isn’t, email newsletters are eagerly signed up for and everyone studied third party reviews (not edited ones within websites, which generally weren’t trusted) before committing to booking. So if you are a tourism business reading this blog, work with Trip Advisor and create the link on your website. Last night I had to stay overnight at a hotel in Lichfield and there on the reception desk was a printed card – ‘If you’ve enjoyed your stay at The George, why not write a review on Trip Advisor’? I had and so I did. And it didn’t cost The George a penny. One local Bed and Breakfast business now receives 80% of its bookings directly through Trip Advisor. Resistance is futile – make friends with it.
Tags: Focus Group, Visit Somerset