Steven Webster's Tech Blog

The Value of Perspective

swebster@myrvadvantage.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:00:16 GMT

Last night I was watching a documentary on CNBC about WalMart. No matter what you think about this mega retailer it is still the undeniable king of information management and corporate culture. A culture that seamlessly folds data from their operations into useful information for "in the store" managers. As a "technology guy" I know it's easy to get caught up in the "data" within an organization. Inventory turns, Door Counts, Website Visitors, Page Views, etc but at the end of the day it is all worthless unless we can turn that into information that is useful for the mission of the store management. Typically in our business that either means a reducing an expense through efficiencies, or increasing revenue through sales. Of course, somewhere in that difference is something we would all like to have more of - profits.

One of the things on the program that hit me in the head was that WalMart figured out that if one customer in any of their stores had a bad customer experience and left WalMart forever, never to shop there again, then WalMart as a company would loose $215,000 over the lifetime of that customer. Let me say that again - loosing one customer from one store is a loss of $215,000 in revenue to WalMart. What made this more interesting was that this data was brought up in a room of managers who were watching video captures of the check out lines at several stores. They were looking for abandoned shopping carts - a clear sign that the store did not have enough checkout lanes open and customers were leaving the store - sometimes never to return. The point was made to the managers that if you tried to save some money in the checkout lanes by staffing down a little, lines would grow and those customers who spent hours gathering all of the things they wanted to purchase had to wait so long that they just gave up and walked out - each abandoned cart sitting on the floor represented a potential loss of $215,000 in revenue. It was a "hit you in the head with a hammer" visual for the managers.

Now in our industry we don't always have these mature information management systems and we have fewer clear cut indicators like this example - but think about this for a second. If you loose one customer what is it worth to your dealership? If you loose one prospect who's just starting out in RVing what is that worth to you personally and then if you add up all of the stuff they buy, trips they'll take, campgrounds they'll visit- what is that customer worth to our industry?

Recently we've realized that we've become victims of our own data at our little company. We got focused on the metrics of what we do rather than what those metrics can do for our customers. We measured ourselves based on the indicators available to us rather than the results those indicators helped achieve for our customers. And because of it - we're changing the way we do business. It is hard and painful and has risks - but it's making us a more focused, higher value and ultimately a better company.

What are you doing at your store to turn raw data into useful information? Are you scaling back expenses past a point of profitability (like in our example)? Are there operational staff changes you have been putting off because you're a loyal employer or advertising you've been keeping because you've always done it that way? Are you able to get out of the business long enough to look at the business like your customers see it and not how you see your customers? You might not like what you see. We didn't! But I'll tell you one thing: you'll come out of it a better, more efficient, profitable company with a much better understanding of what makes your business work well and how you provide value to your customers.

The True Cost of Changing Websites

swebster@myrvadvantage.com — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:14:00 GMT

As businesses in our industry look everywhere to cut costs and manage expenses, one easy target is your marketing budget. Very often, decisions are made to reduce advertising and marketing expenses during tough times. Sometimes, in our business, what we see is a dealer making a decision to switch website providers based solely on reducing their monthly invoice. After all, a website is a website right?

Well, not exactly.

While it's relatively straightforward to look at the production costs for a TV ad or direct mail piece or even your long distance service and choose the lower priced option, changing your websites, if it's not done correctly, can have a big impact on your business and cost you far more than saving a few bucks each month.

Why? Well unlike other forms of marketing, websites grow roots. Changing sites is a lot like ripping out an established apple tree and planting a seedling. It takes time to grow and it won't provide nearly the fruit it did before for a long time. The reason for this is simple. The search engines like Google and Yahoo have spent the last several years getting to know you're website. They do this slowly to ensure that you’re site is a real business and has valuable relevant content. It can take a very long time for them to index everything. If you do it right and with consistency then you’re rewarded with higher search engine rankings than your competitors. Then one day, the search engine bots go to check in on your site’s content and it's not there anymore. All of your pages have changed and your entire site index on Google is invalid. Furthermore these bots notice that you are on a different server now.

You see search engines look at things like IP address changes (an IP Address is an “address” or “serial number” for your web providers servers and switching providers means switching IP addresses) so when they see a server IP address change they know have to re-index the entire site. If you're new provider doesn't make this easy for the search engines with easily indexed URLs, redirects, and a host of other search engine optimization tricks then it can take months or even up to a year to regain your search engine rankings that you worked so hard to get in the first place. What is worse is if your new provider isn’t good at getting your website found then no matter the cost of the site your customers won’t find it.

Since roughly 80% of your prospects will visit your site before they come to your store and nearly half of them find your site based on keyword searches on sites like Google, this can have a huge impact on the number of prospects that can even find you see after making the switch. You wouldn’t move your dealership off of an expensive lot next to a major highway over to a country road in the boonies to save money on land and property taxes would you? Well, think of your website in exactly the same way.

Unfortunately, many dealers realize this too late, often a month or so after they have switched. Their web traffic and online leads drop dramatically and they begin to notice people aren't bringing flyers that they printed on the website into the store anymore. Certainly not the effect the dealer was hoping for.

So what can you do?

Well, first things first - talk to your current provider. Do they have lower priced plans that can help you through a tough financial situation? Often a company is willing to help if you explain the situation. If it's just not going to work then make sure to ask your new provider a few questions:

How search engine friendly are their websites?
Prove it - What kind of search engine rankings do they get for their customers?
If you switch to them how will they minimize any traffic losses
How long will the transition take?
How much will a switch improve or reduce your current search engine rankings?

If you switch to a provider who knows what they are doing, has proven search engine optimization results and can show you how they've helped dealers generate more traffic by switching to their platform it might be worth the short term hit in rankings and traffic.

In fact, it might even be worth spending a little more

Handling Web Leads

swebster@myrvadvantage.com — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 06:25:18 GMT

Lately, we've been fielding a lot of questions from customers about handing their online leads. Not just the leads that email the store, but really anything coming in on the phone, on the web, from GoRVing, manufacturers, etc. While many dealers have been investing in their websites over the years and growing their traffic (and leads) they are often under equipped to handle these new "online" prospect. Here are just a few highlights from a recent conversation I've had with a dealer we've been working with for a few years:More...