What’s Hip Hapnin?

A few months ago I posted about the horrible UI experience when trying to buy a printer on the HP website.

Here is another example.  But instead of coming from a big company that you would expect to be clueless it is from sphinn a forum on internet marketing

Not only do they make you go back and try to remember some math problem from fifth grade.  They also make you decrypt a secret code.  I tried to make it through the registration 5 times before I realized my encrypted code was actually case sensitive-it seems like that would be an important detail to include.

So the point of this is that with any transaction the risk must be shared.  If consumers are carrying too much of the risk they will sense that and go away.  Traditionally companies pass on the risk to the consumer with restrictive return policies, expensive warranties, etc.  Typically the lower the price the more of the risk you will inherit.

In this transaction they obviously don’t want to pay somebody to go through every account and moderate them and make sure they are legit.  So they are passing on the pain in the transaction to real users.  I pay the price because they don’t want to pay another forum moderator.

I tried to create an account 5 times before I cracked the code.  How many times would you try?

How are you frustrating your customers and making your job easier? how long do they have to wait at your call center?  How many questions on your contact us form are for you and not them?  What are you charging for that you should be giving away?  Just because a few people abuse a service that is offered doesn’t mean you need to make a policy about it. You should be finding ways to make it easier for your customers every step of the way.