A business website is most likely a multifaceted tool that should be helping you run your business, generate new business, and support your existing customers, plus a score of other possible processes or applications.
Importantly though, when rebuilding, adjusting or looking to change your website you need to make sure you know which master you are catering to!
A business that is using one website to do many equally important functions has to look at balancing often competing goals to deliver a rich user experience.
When this happens you have to look carefully at whether one site or landing page can effectively deliver on the competing goals.
Fundamentally, the place users land should help solve their problem. NOTE “THEIR” problem. Too many sites are engineered to solve the business’ problem. Now I am not advocating losing focus on solving your problems, but I am saying that you cannot lose focus on helping your key audience achieve their goals. Otherwise your problems will centre around having no customers!
I use three banking sites in Australia day to day. Several of them seem to spend far too much energy on winning new business than loving the business they have (hence the title).
Who do they love? Who should they love?
Their current customers want a better deal. If we are using the internet to do our banking then the last thing we want is the user experience to get worse.
The highlight of this review is Suncorp. This is the result of a recent new site release. They have just demonstrated to me (again) that they value my needs less than selling to my neighbour.
As a customer I want a one step login process. I used to have it. On visiting many of their site pages, I could click to login in a single step. Now a bright red drop down has been introduced that requires a mouseover, then further action. Okay it is only 1 step different, but isn’t that exactly the point? Could they not make it 1 step easier to do rather than make it 1 step harder?
[Tech note: The JavaScript or other code is slow to load and often malfunctions in Firefox if you are too quick to mouseover]
Why have they replaced a permanent object on the homepage (and everywhere throughout the site) with white space and a promotion to their sales pages for their banking products?
Oh wait they have rolled out a new site… suncorpbanking.com.au. Yes I can understand that, separate the business etc so banking customers can get straight to what they want.
Oh hang on. No, much more of the same.
The entire rebranded site does nothing for the active money generating customer. It has been all about the marketing effort. How they can promote their products. Surely existing customers deserve more than a few hundred pixels?
Dear Suncorp Marketing, if you won over your existing customers more, spent more time getting us as raving fans, and made our life easier you might find we do your marketing for you.
Please start thinking about your customer. Stop running cheesy TVCs saying that you make banking simple when you DON’T. You make it harder, by failing to understand a simple process.
I don’t mind that you want new customers. That makes perfect sense. That should not stop you getting your balance right.
Step away from your broadcast model, get focused on helping us do banking and stop telling us you get it. If you do get it we will tell people for you. Until that happens you don’t get it.
Love your [existing] customers. Don’t stop loving your prospects either, but start asking – “how do we do more with those customers we already have?” Why haven’t you changed the actual secure banking site even more than you have changed your public marketing site?
It shows me you don’t care enough.
That gives me one more reason to make a change. That should worry you.
- Westpac and NAB do the same thing.
- Commbank do it better. Clear buttons that take one click.
- St George find a middle ground.
Make sure your website has a clear audience and that you are serving them well! And make sure you remember your customers. They are your business.
Well that’s what ireckon anyway.
Great post Darryl!
I’m also an existing Suncorp customer and am extremely frustrated by the new changes. Why on Earth would you want to make it harder for existing customer to logon to net banking?! I’m sure that makes up 90% of their traffic anyway…
As always, the less clicks the better!
Mike
Nice post.
I found exactly the same thing the last time I tried to use their site. It was a bizarre choice for them to make.
Building road blocks between your stake holders and what they want to do is poor service and ultimately self defeating.
Looks like SUNCORP is trying to get rid of old customers.
What site ? I bookmarked https://internetbanking.suncorpmetway.com.au/sml/logon.asp a long time ago. It’s one click away in my bookmarks. Simple.
I have no idea what the rest of their site is like unless I need to use their locator to find “my nearest branch”. As long as that one web address doesn’t change I’m happy
Exactly the problem tho, as i want easy access on any device of my choosing. Importantly though while there are work arounds to anything the key here is that as a company they need to understand who they are targetting in any decision they make. The opposite is true with their iPhone mobile site, in that they have actually made some good decisions.