Make decisions easy for customers

How much is what I want???
What do I get with that???

Make it easy for customers to do business with you.

Cell phone companies are (usually poor) examples of how to make shopping easy.

Instead of showing the price for what I want, the web site says price “requires one of these plans”. Well, I don’t know what that plan is, and I don’t know how much that plan costs. Then I go look at what that plan is, and it gives options — I still don’t know what my plan is going to cost.

Here’s what I want to know:
– How much is it?
– How much is the difference in price from my current plan?
– What is the difference in features from my current plan?

Having the web site clear is even more important when I call customer service. Many companies have customer service read the web site, of course. If the web site isn’t clear, phone conversations will be even less clear than looking at the web site, since I’d have to (try to) remember the numbers they quickly read to me.

What do you want? (I select it)

Here’s what you’ve selected and how much it costs, and here’s how your plan will be different than what you have now.

Here’s some options and how much your plan would cost with each one

From what you’ve selected, (repeat previous step)

Place order

I want to make 600 to 800 minutes of calls per month, send 200-500 text messages a month, and occasionally be able to check a web site. Got that? Ok, now how much does that plan cost? Oh, that’s too much, how much with this smaller option?

I want answers in this format:
Great, if you want X minutes phone calls, unlimited text messaging and 5GB web access, here’s the price for the plan you’ve selected.
(If you talk to customer service, say you want the “ABC Plan with DEF”).
This is $X more than your current plan.
From this selection, here are some other options to consider:
a: unlimited this $/month (show total and difference)
b: unlimited that
c: more limited this
d: more limited that

If the customer says something is important to them, mention it in every plan description. If being able to download a song is important to me, don’t neglect mentioning that, just because I select a plan that includes it. “Download a Song (included with unlimited web access)”.

Trip planning is important to me; is that included with the web access? Is it separate? How much does it cost without web access, how much with web access? How about “You said trip planning was a feature you are interested in. This plan includes it; or, this plan doesn’t include it, $X to add it”.

Simple. Clear. Easy.

Don’t clutter up “here’s what you get” with every feature under the sun. Most of the features are unimportant to customers. The place for listing every feature is in the early “what do you want” phase, not the “are you ready to order” phase.

“Oh, I really want voice mail, does this plan have voice mail?” Well, all our plans have the same voice mail. “Fine, I’m checking I want voice mail, so show it”. Don’t whine to me about “it’s in the All Plans Offer section”. “It’s important to me, show me what’s important to me, and don’t show me this other junk”.

“OK, we’ll show the list of all features available, and you can check off what’s important to you, and we’ll show you each time whether the plan you’ve selected has that feature or not. We’ll even organize the features in sections, so your screen isn’t cluttered.”

Make it easy for customers to do business with you.