The best sales pitch in the world

After telling you the worst last week, it’s only fair (if only so I don’t look totally negative) to give you the best sales pitch in the world (in my humble opinion):

“Do you want fires with that?”

I’ve a lot to say about McDonalds (alright, negativity for a little bit longer), none of it good.  I don’t like the food, I don’t eat there and I have a real problem with them taking over the way they have.  I’ll say no more except buy yourself a copy of  Fast Food Nation and see if you still eat there.

Anyway, I may not like the company but I do like the fact that even once they’ve sold you something (you’re standing at the checkout after all), they’ll still try and sell you more.  Other companies try this although some don’t quite get the idea.  I was in a branch of W H Smith recently buying .net magazine and a bar of chocolate.  When I went to pay for the items I was asked:

“Would you like to buy a bar of chocolate?” and was shown a few bars that were sitting beside the till.
”I’ve already got one.”
”These are on special offer!”

They were £1.50 each so they weren’t that special and if I’ve already got something, don’t try and sell me exactly the same thing!

So what has this got to do with websites?  Well, every website out there should have a “Contact Us” page, this gives the visitor to your site two reasons to get in touch with you that they wouldn’t have if you didn’t have one:

1. They can get you to call them.  Nobody likes to call a company, they don’t want to appear too keen.  If they get you to call them, it gives them a small sense of power over the transaction ahead.
2. They find out how good your customer service is.  If a company isn’t quick to get in touch with a potential new customer, how are they going to treat them once they are a customer.
   (interestingly, most companies don’t realise the 2nd point but for me it’s the most important point of all).

Most website contact forms simply ask for a name, a telephone number, an e-mail addresses and in some cases a box for the visitor to fill in giving more details.

The “Do you want fries” moment comes if you give a list of the services you offer and ask them to tick off the ones they want to discuss.  it’s fair to say the visitor would have had a good look round the site but would they have looked at everything?  if you can show the visitor everything you do at the point they want to talk to you, maybe they’ll see something they didn’t know you did and ask for more details (they may also look around your site again to find out more).

For bigger companies this is even more handy as they can make sure the right person contacts the company from the start as they already know what they want to talk about.

As an example, have a think about what I can offer to clients as a website designer, now take a look at the contact form for Trembirth Design and see what other things a website designer can do.  Some are offered by me, some are offered by companies I work with but if I don’t tell people that I can do that sort of thing, how are they ever going to know?