Their website was easy to navigate, clearly laid out and had offers of money off and free delivery for new customers.

Brilliant we thought… 

.. and it was except that the new customer offer did not work when we tried to check out, and the gift voucher code was not accepted.

What happened next could have gone one of two ways:

1. Give up and buy elsewhere
2. Attempt to call the retailer for assistance

We choose the second option. Fortunately, they had a customer service department that was open on a Sunday and were able to help - not with the website issues - but they did take our order and apply the relevant discount and gift voucher.

How many people would have chosen the first option though?

It is important that businesses with an online presence check their website regularly for:

• Any broken links - a page name change or deleting a product can be the cause of this. if a page cannot be found from a link then the user will see an error code. Visitors to your site will accept that occasionally they may stumble across a page that cannot be found (usually accompanied by Error 404!) but too many or if there is no way of being able to move away from the page then they may just move onto another site. It is an idea to use the Error 404 page as an opportunity to show your brands personality and include an image or text to represent that.
• Offer Codes - if you are providing discounts, promotions or you accept vouchers, then check that they are working and if they are not, then how people can contact you easily
• Content - is it up to date and the information still valid?
• Contact details - are the phone numbers and emails still current and are they clickable? It makes it so much easier for people visiting your site on mobile devices to press once and call you or send you a message.