Why Your Company Website Fails Your Employees

Why your company website fails your employees

can be hard for business owners to swallow but understanding this facet is a step toward helping your team and business grow positively. See Web Services. We can all agree that every business needs a website. When you hear of a new product, service or business, what is your first reaction? You’ll head over to their website, correct? "86% of consumers stated that using a search engine allowed them to learn something new or important that helped him/her increase his/her knowledge." - Pew Research Center, Search Engine Use 2012

94 percent of B2B buyers research online for purchase decisions - Acquity Group, 2014 State of B2B Procurement Study

When these visitors come to your website and decide to take the next step in the journey, how they interact with your website makes a huge impact on how they engage with your employees. Are you failing your employees or helping them succeed?

Here are the most important areas addressed when a company website fails your employees:

1. People Judge Your Employees Based on Your Digital Presence

Is your company website sloppy? Does your website have invalid links, spelling errors, or fuzzy images? Is the copyright message on the bottom from 2013?

If so, customers are intuitively understanding that if you don't even care about your website, how well will you care about their needs as a customer? Which means that if your website is sloppy, your customers think your employees are sloppy. Even if they are the greatest employees in the world, they have to work that much harder to overcome the stigma of a poor digital presence.

Check out: 6 Website Design Trends for 2014 that fit for 2015

Only 37 percent of B2B buyers who conduct research through a supplier’s website said it was the most helpful channel for this purpose. - Acquity Group, 2014 State of B2B Procurement Study

How to help your employees succeed: Strive for a digital presence that fits your company's image and helps communicate that you care about the details.

2. Your Website Doesn't Match Employee Training

Bad website or good website, if your employees are sharing information that contradicts what's on the web, trouble is soon to follow. Remember that most consumers research products and services online. If any of the following points are true, then your employees are suffering.

Customers know more about your company's products and services than your employees, just by looking at your website.
Employees don't know what's on your company website
The website's information is not current or up-to-date
The website tells customers one thing, your employees tell them something different

Your site needs to instantly promote a sense of trust, credibility and experience for your customers AND your employees. Fail on those points and you’re not only going to lose business, you're going to fail your employees. Keeping the website updated and incorporating your website into your employee training will help your employees communicate effectively with your customers.

A great company that participates in Web-Centered Employee Training is Apple

Allow the website to be the nucleus of your company's marketing efforts. A great website can not only catch eye-balls, but offer great information to your customers. A great website keeps the messaging consistent and in line with the brand promise. Having product features, service highlights, or company values that employees can share with customers strengthens the ability for success.

3. Clunky Navigation Equals Upset Customers

When people are visiting websites they are generally looking for something and they want to be able to find it easily.

Read HubSpot's Blog: 55% of Visitors Spend Fewer Than 15 Seconds on Your Website. Should You Care?

If existing customers are unable to navigate your website for support, or answers to their questions then guess what they do next? They call your company and complain to your employees. Worse, they'll yell and berate your team! Ouch. You now have great employees that are being funneled frustration by customers for something that isn't even their fault or have control over. The customer views the employee as a face for the company. You are failing your employees if you are allowing this to occur and avoid updating the digital experience of your brand.

You can help your employees by helping your customers. Clear, intuitive navigation that is easy to use is vital to your website. Consider your user journeys and organize content and information in such a way that supports the visitor intent and objectives.

4. Employees Lack Pride In Website

Is this a secret? Great companies understand that marketing is not always about the customer or defeating the competition (though the messaging is on point), marketing can boost employee morale. This is less talked about, maybe it is some great secret but I can tell you it can be powerful. A great looking and performing website can boost your employee's pride in the company and want to tell their family and friends and definitely the customers. A poorly functioning and badly designed website can have the opposite effect. Even if you have all the information available on your website, if it's hard to get to or looks like it was designed in the dial-up era, your employees are reluctant to share. It can be embarrassing. How many website have you looked at and started laughing because they were so bad? Are you on this list? Web Pages That Suck

It's a good practice to keep a pulse on employee moral and pride, providing them with a great website can help in this regard, and that's a good thing. Here are other ways to Increase Employee Morale and Performance.

So, is Your Website Important to Your Employees?

Make your website central to your marketing plan. When you define your business, your customer, and your market it needs to be communicated on your website. Leverage your website within employee training to keep messaging consistent and help your employees succeed with your customers.

Read the Business To Community Article: 5 Reasons Companies Fail at Customer Service

The article makes some great points about customer service and 3 of the 5 points can be directly affected by a solid website with a marketing plan. You've built a successful company with amazing people working hard to serve your customers, help your employees succeed with a solid digital presence and marketing initiative.

// Zack

At Kpahi, we believe the internet is poweful. Let's use it.