Web customers care about tasks, not goals

Posted on April 11th, 2010 in Simplicity.

Talking about customer goals is the biggest mistake a website can make. That’s how you lose the impatient customer.

A couple of months ago we needed to find a new house cleaner. I went to lots and lots of house cleaner websites and became more and more frustrated. The typical website had a big silly picture of someone smiling out at me.

Hello marketers. Anybody home? Can you please, please get over the jaded, print marketing, old school hero shot. It’s the Web. It’s the 21st Century. Wake up, please. Do you go to Google and see a sexy woman smiling out at you saying. “I’m having such fun searching. You should try it too.”? Do you go to Twitter and find a handsome man smiling out at you, saying: “Communication is such fun. You should try it too.” Do you go to an airline website and see a happy couple smiling out at you, saying: “You need a break. It’s such fun booking a flight. Try it!”

So, I was at a house cleaner website and this lady was smiling out at me with her hands behind her head. Hello. I need a cleaner. She’s not going to do much cleaning for me if she has her hands behind her head. And she’s saying to me: “Book a cleaner and get time for you.”

That was a big breakthrough for me. For years we’ve had a cleaner and I never really understood why. But this website educated me. It’s all about time. And then this hands-behind-her-head-big-grinning-lady asks me: “Are you looking for a cleaner?” Well, duh. Actually, no. I’m looking for a set of golf clubs, but for some wholly unfathomable reason I typed the following text into Google: “house cleaner”.

Then the lady says: “We clean your house so you don’t have to.” A major milestone for me in the evolution of my thoughts as to why it’s a good idea to have a cleaner. Before that extraordinary sentence we had a weekly panic. “The cleaner’s coming tomorrow! What!? Tomorrow? Quick! Clean the house before the cleaner gets here.”

The cleaning websites I went to told me truly useless things I already knew but didn’t tell me the things I really wanted to know: hourly rates, whether they worked in my area, whether they cleaned on weekends.

These websites wasted my time by telling me that my time is precious. They kept talking about my goals. I know my goals. By the time I’m at a search engine, I know my goals. I’m on the Web because I have a task that will help me fulfil my goal. The Web is about doing. It is active. It is task-focused.

Focusing on the goal is a huge mistake marketers make again and again. And the pretty pictures and swirling, shiny ‘interactive’ objects that are placed on black backgrounds. And the grey text. Marketers and designers think these things are cool and impressive but they are the exact opposite. Customers sneer at these old school brochure marketing tactics.

The Web is about tasks.

 

12 responses

  1. Alan Charlesworth says:

    Added on April 11th, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    Gerry, you’re beginning to annoy me.

    I’m sat here trying to write a book on online marketing and every chuffing week you come up with something that is glaringly obvious but that no-one [well, nearly no-one] has put into words so clearly before. You write what I think [and, I hope, include in my classes - and to a much less degree - in my books].

    Keep up the good [if annoying] work. One day all those web designers will think this way. No, wait hold on … if they all start to do it right, I’m out of a job.

  2. Neil says:

    Added on April 11th, 2010 at 4:07 pm

    Just thought I would say that you clearly aren’t married:

    “The cleaner’s coming tomorrow! What!? Tomorrow? Quick! Clean the house before
    the cleaner gets here.”

    All married men know this is exactly what their wives do:-)

  3. Jeffrey says:

    Added on April 11th, 2010 at 5:34 pm

    Mr McGovern

    With all due respect, it seems to me you did the same thing to me, with this email, as the house cleaners did to you.

    My task in reading it was to learn what it was you “cared” to see on a housecleaning site, if not rates, geographic areas covered, weekend schedules.

    Pointing out “mistakes” on a website is analogous to making claims of having more time for oneself by hiring the cleaner.

    What did you “care” to see when you went to these cleaning sites?

  4. Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:

    Added on April 11th, 2010 at 5:44 pm

    Hello Jeffrey. I think I might not have clearly written part of the piece. What I was looking for on these sites was stuff such as hourly rates, geographic areas covered, weekend schedules. These sites didn’t provide me this information.

  5. Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:

    Added on April 11th, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    Alan, thanks. It’s only taken me 16 years (and countless mistakes) and constantly thinking about this stuff to make some sense of it.

  6. Gavin says:

    Added on April 12th, 2010 at 6:04 am

    Gerry

    When it comes to kids online, does a task based approach still apply to the same degree that it does for adults? Do kids want their digital experience to be differnt than adults?

    When its come to websites for adults, I fully agree with your task focussed approach (its hard not to!). But I’m not sure if this applies. All the flashing light, animations and transitions that adults are not too excited about seem to bother kids less. Would be good to get your thoughts on this.

    I work in a agency that produces sites for children and this issue comes up again and again!

    Cheers

    Gavin

  7. Gerry McGovern (blog author) says:

    Added on April 12th, 2010 at 6:55 am

    Gavin, good question and I’m afraid I don’t have an answer because I don’t have any experience with kids sites. I do remember coming across research a while back saying that young people tend to be more impatient than adults and will spend less time trying to figure something out. It would be great to see more evidence here.

  8. Mike Simpson says:

    Added on April 12th, 2010 at 8:28 am

    This really goes back to Gerry’s maxim that old school marketing is about getting attention, web marketing is about paying attention.

    Too many people design websites like they would design a poster or a leaflet or a magazine advert: something that will grab our attention. Something that will make us pause in The Thing That We Are Doing (reading a mag, following the plot of a TV show, walking to work…) and make us realise: “Hey, you know what? They’re right: I do need a cleaner/car/different brand of toothpaste.”

    What these marketing dinosaurs forget is that the web is an information smorgasbord. And we have already decided what we want. If a customer is on the web and has reached your site (and has a use for your site) it’s because The Thing That They Are Doing is not reading something else or going someplace else, it’s actively looking for what is (or should be) on your site.

    You don’t need to persuade us we want a cleaner/car/whatever. We know that. If we didn’t want a c/c/w, we wouldn’t be at your site. (In fact, I might go so far as to say, as the young people do, ‘duh’.)

    Don’t try to sell us the idea of a cleaner or a car, because we already have that idea. Sell us YOUR cleaner or YOUR car. You don’t need to woo us. You had us at Google.

  9. Stu says:

    Added on April 12th, 2010 at 11:52 am

    Gerry, I’m a big fan of your work. However, I disagree with the central theme of this email - that all of a website’s content should be task-focused.

    Of course, rates, hours, etc is essential info to present prominently on your website (if those things are important to your audience).

    But equally, web copy sometimes needs to convert visits to sales and the best way to do that is to state the problem (however obvious) and show how you solve it better than anyone else. So, while to you the cleaning website statements about how hiring a cleaner saves you time, etc, to someone not sure whether or not to hire a cleaner may still need a little persuasion.

    Surely a good website does more than just facilitate task completion - it does a selling job, allows visitors to qualify themselves AND lets them complete tasks important to them?

  10. Stu says:

    Added on April 12th, 2010 at 11:54 am

    Sorry, bad typist. Sentence below should read:

    “So, while to you the cleaning website statements about how hiring a cleaner saves you time, etc, *is obvious*, someone not sure whether or not to hire a cleaner may still need a little persuasion.

  11. Mike says:

    Added on April 12th, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    Gerry,

    Would you say a little more about the difference between a “goal” and a “task.” They seem a lot alike to me.

    - Mike

  12. Mick Dolan says:

    Added on April 15th, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    Tending to agree with Stu on this one. Why didn’t the websites you visited show both sides of the coin? Why you need this cleaning service and what are the rates, working hours etc…While i also agree wth Gerry that too muck marketing bluster is a complete turn off, and would just make you want to leave the site ..immediately… faced with an onslaught of marketing babble!

    The difference between tasks and goals can be very succinct and can mean the difference between success and failure. Take this example..

    Traffic around the Prix De l’Arc De Triumph suffered a 10 fold decrease in traffic accidents when authorities took down the multiple road signs facing drivers as they approached the famous roundabout. i.e authorities discovered that there were less accidents when instructions ( goals) were removed. Tasks were completed more successfully.

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