By Richard Dean
Strategic Interactive Group

From its inception, your site had a single purpose: to give your company a web presence and provide customers with information. Now you want to expand your marketing web site to one that serves customers, sells products, or builds community. Here's how to formulate your evolution plan

Preface
Strategy
First Steps
E-Commerce
Customer Service
Community
Tips for Managing Your Project

OW THAT YOU'VE GOTTEN YOUR FEET WET WITH YOUR FIRST SITE, you probably want more than a mere presence on line. You are ready to evolve your site from one that has served as a marketing tool to one that carries out your company's business goals. Adding areas for e-commerce, customer service, or community will fundamentally change the way your business operates. The possibilities are endless, and taking the right steps now can make the difference between a successful implementation and just another expensive experiment.

Growth is never easy, however. And expanding your site is not something to enter into lightly. Whether the push to expand your site comes from you, your customers, or someone up the corporate food chain, the same careful planning and measuring of returns is required. Our objective here is to draw on the experiences of businesses that have further developed - even transformed - their sites, some successfully and some not. We'll map out the decisions you have to make and tell you how to think about them. But the decision to expand your web site is yours alone, and just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.

Strategy

The most important step before you add to your site is to integrate the site into your business plan. Integration means setting measurable goals for what you hope to achieve, finding the right people/departments to help, determining a budget, and making sure the site fits into your overall corporate marketing strategies. Do this whether or not you are planning to add to your site. Without this type of planning, your site will lack focus and be unproductive (or even counterproductive), plus you will run the risk of out-of-control costs when you start to expand.

In some cases, the decision to grow stems from internal discussions, customer demands, or bad press. In these scenarios, you can decide what you might add and, in the end, whether to go through with it. In another scenario, less ideal but just as likely, someone has made the decision for you. Whether this situation plays itself out in the form of someone in a corner office telling you to add e-commerce or as a more general mandate to change the site, you may have little say in the matter.

If you think about the Web as a tool to help you achieve a business goal, these orders from above will not be the death sentence they originally appear. You can work the function into your site as you would add a new aspect to any part of your business. In fact, this is the only way to do it. The function that you add should serve a purpose and have goals and deliverables, just like any other project.

First Steps

The first steps you should take include assessing all sources of internal information, meeting with every department that may be affected, and thinking through business goals. Community may be the new buzzword, but if your company doesn't have a compelling reason to add community features, don't do it. By examining the strategies and purposes behind your site, you can avoid pricey missteps and customer confusion.

One of the most fundamental mistakes that businesses make adding to their sites - and this is true of large and small companies - is not getting all of the right people involved at the beginning. Think about it. You are undertaking what is essentially a software-development project, and there is nothing that'll destroy your budget (and credibility) more quickly than bringing in a department at the last minute that should have been involved from the beginning.

We know of one company whose marketing department had free reign in developing the site. The department decided to sell products on line, but did not involve the finance department until months after the decision had been made. As it turned out, the company was set up to take only checks, not credit cards. Needless to say, the bean counters were not too happy.

Each company is different, but if your initiative is not in step with company objectives or does not have the support of senior management, you will spend more of your time arguing than building. Seek out the people in your company who are heading other web initiatives. These folks can help you avoid many blunders, especially if they covered this ground six months earlier. They can also help you avoid mediocre outside vendors. (Yes, you'll need them.) Because the medium is so new, lots of folks in larger companies want to "own" the entire web arena. This should be one of the first things you let go of: the web is a channel, not a department. Repeat this early and often.

Your first step should be developing a phased plan for your additions - whether thinking the project through solo or gathering some influential, net-savvy employees to develop a plan of action. This plan should be a starting point, and you should be willing to adapt it to other ideas if the situation calls for it. Whatever you do, resist attaching hard numbers to your effort right now. From our experience, we know that it is impossible to attach dollar figures to an undefined project.

Remembering that the web is a channel, form a broad-stroked initiative. This means understanding the capabilities of your current systems and mapping out information flow to see who these new areas might affect. As an example, let's take the case of a company that sells flowers wholesale. Its web plan should be sensitive to everyone involved in the company's current process, from growers through to postsales support.

Part of this initial plan should include brainstorming among the smaller groups in your company to find ways to use the Web. Your site's goals should include streamlining processes and saving money or avoiding expenses, and by brainstorming you can reach better solutions. For example, in such a session, you discover that sales reps in the field could save time and long-distance charges by having password-protected web access to updated phone lists.

One company was able to add a large database with product information to its site because the development team had invited a representative from the right department. Without this person, that area might have been missed.

The information you'll gain from these diverse people will ensure that your site strategy is inclusive. Having employees who know the Internet can help this process, but beware: a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Net veterans often dismiss ideas out hand because they are hard to implement (for example, e-commerce or real-time web-phone customer service). Reject nothing in these initial stages. Just because it's in your plan right now doesn't mean you have to build it first. Which leads to the next point: you don't have to do it all. You can't do it all, and - trust us - you don't want to.

After you have formed an initial plan, worked through scenarios with people in the company, and decided which initiatives you want to undertake, you are ready to start your initiative. We have targeted the areas that you are most likely to examine: e-commerce, customer service, or community. Most sites try to attack one of these areas first, but some try to focus a little on each all the way along. Having watched at least a dozen large and medium-sized companies try it both ways, we can say that a planned migration from one area to the next leads to a more easily managed and focused solution.

E-Commerce

Adding e-commerce can mean many different things, from requesting a catalog, to signing up for a service, to purchasing a product. Our definition is more limited: adding the capability to make purchases. E-commerce is perhaps the most complex and, therefore, expensive area you can add to your site. It's also the quickest way to beef up your ROI. But don't worry too much about making money up front. This is a new medium, and your company needs time to figure out how to do business on line.

When you add e-commerce capabilities, you need to do more than just beef up your credit card processing team and add new servers. E-commerce involves getting web-generated information to your warehouse and buyers to make sure that your sales forecasts stay accurate. It includes training your customer service reps to help online buyers. E-commerce also means ensuring that UPS and FedEx tracking numbers are stored and retrievable, and that parts catalogs are updated and databases cleaned. Finally, e-commerce touches on all the information you capture about those who buy (and just as important, those who don't), which must be added into the marketing mix.

Let's go back to the case of the floral wholesaler. We'll say that the owner is not particularly pleased with the initial response that the site has received. The VP in charge of the project has decided that electronic ordering is desirable. However, given the less-than-stellar initial response to the site, the VP knows that it will be hard to convince the owner to implement e-commerce. So, she has placed it on her timeline, about a year out. Instead, she has decided to enhance the site's marketing effort first.

We all have an idea of how much the wholesaler could make/save by going whole hog after e-commerce, but let's be realistic. If your first web initiative isn't stunning, it's going to be difficult to get the owner (or some senior VP) to buy into a million dollar web-commerce program. So instead of going for the golden goose, the company decides to enhance the marketing efforts already in place on the site or to branch into customer service. This is often the route companies take in their online evolution, although few can point to a plan of action that led them this way.

Customer Service

In developing a plan for the introduction (or enhancement) of the service aspect of your site, be sure to include several front-line reps in the discussions. These people know the customers' likes and dislikes because they deal with them every day. This type of input is invaluable and necessary for customer service. Remember, customer service is more than just repurposing your phone reps' guidebooks or databases. Any company information that you put up must be repositioned for an end user. Be sure to plan for a weekly update (preferably daily, monthly at a minimum) of this part of your site.

Probably the biggest surprise companies get when they add customer service functions to their sites is the level of user response that they get. Companies who don't plan for huge volumes of inbound e-mail will quickly find out just how powerful the Net can be in spreading a negative image. Plan for the worst case scenario, not the best. Don't underestimate how quickly people want a response. Some software companies have found that when people e-mail for support, they'll also use the 800 number if they don't get a quick response. Ultimately, this doesn't save you money and simply frustrates the end user.

Before opening the gates, train a staff of net-savvy customer service reps. Dedicate them to answering the e-mail and the phone calls of web users needing assistance. Carefully log all of these calls, and use them as a means of driving your customer service function. Set up a separate 800 number just for the Net - this makes tracking incoming traffic easier.

A caveat: net users - at least anecdotally - are more likely to make suggestions for improvements to your web site than offline customers are to suggest improvements to your brick and mortar business. So take their suggestions with caution. Treat all submissions with respect, but remember, you don't have to include every one in your strategy.

One computer company added areas for its top customers. These large businesses accounted for the lion's share of the firm's revenue, so it made sense to target them first. These password-protected minisites allowed various buyers to check the status of orders, see special deals, query their personal account reps, and keep up to speed on new technologies that were relevant to their needs. In this case, customer service was a custom-built site function, developed in partnership with the computer firm's buyers. What the customer needed was built right into the privileged area.

Community

Building community. Getting closer to your customers. A virtual town. Whatever buzz phrase you hear, everyone wants to bring community to their web site. Trouble is, few people really know what this means. It could mean adding live chat rooms, threaded discussion areas, real-world meetings, or VRML-based playpens. It could also mean having some of your product group experts answer e-mail from users, or soliciting product testimonials from end users for posting on your site. Alternatively, if your company has expertise in the outdoors, a discussion area for great hiking is very appropriate. Whichever route you take, think it all the way through. (Sound familiar?)

Real-time chat and unmoderated discussion groups are something to avoid for most companies. Our floral wholesaler has little need for live chat, but CNN's TalkBack Live does. Know the risks of unmoderated discussion, both legally (which is only vaguely defined right now) and practically. Do you really want your users to be able to post anything they want about your new line of mattresses? If not, do you have the staff to moderate the discussion? Don't forget that you'll need new software and someone to fix it when it breaks. Live functions place heavy loads on web servers, so be sure to speak with companies using the chat/discussion software before committing.

Be honest about your company's relationship with customers. You don't have to invent a persona for your firm - people generally don't look to a phone company for advice on great vacation spots. On the other hand, we know of an alcohol firm that had a wildly successful career advice web site. But be careful if you go down this path. Your best bet is probably to focus on what you do well. Also, remember that community is just one way of bringing people back to your site. People largely return to web sites because they are useful.

Tips for Managing Your Project

However you build your site, here are some general guidelines to help you effectively manage the project.

Avoid setting unrealistic deadlines. Almost every project starts with a deadline as its premise. "We want electronic commerce by October," or "Our site must be on line by August." Usually those deadlines are three to six months away, and the folks who set them have little or no comprehension of what they are asking for. So your first task is to figure out what is needed, what kind of budget you have, and whether that timeline is hard and fast. For example, if your busy selling season is Christmas, then October is probably the latest you'll want to introduce something as complex as e-commerce. But if you don't have a site now and there is no event tied to the launch, a month's delay might be just fine. Building a web site is a negotiated process: if October is firm, then maybe some features drop out until January. If you only have $100,000, maybe true e-commerce can't be done yet. Above all, don't launch until you are ready.

Learn software development. The first lesson that everyone involved should learn is to look at the web project from a software development standpoint. Yes, building your site involves marketing and advertising, but those are well-understood areas. Software development is new to most people involved in web projects, and everyone on the project should be brought up to speed. Keep in mind the following truisms of software development.

If you double the number of programmers assigned to a project, it takes longer to get the project done, especially once it's under way. Nine women cannot have a baby in a month. Repeat this every day.
Fixing bugs late in the process takes significantly more effort than fixing them early.
Programmers need to define the project before they begin. You can't just "start programming." (Well, you can, but it's a really bad idea.)
Listen to your programmers when they say it can't be done.
Obey code freezes. If you work on your site until the day it launches, you are asking for trouble.
Remember, there is no such thing as a bug-free site.

These rules are difficult for those outside of programming to understand. Inevitably, clients and managers want to add features to the web site weeks and days before launch. You need a process for dealing with this kind of input. Adding a feature in phase two instead of phase one is fine. However, jeopardizing the launch by switching a color from red to maroon is not OK. (You should have caught that weeks ago.)

The above rules are critical to a successful - and relatively stress-free - project. The more complex the project, the more important these rules become. Ignore them, and we guarantee your project will run behind schedule and over budget. And if your programmers don't quit in the middle of the project, they'll quit at the end.

Know your audience. This is a hard one because reliable information about web surfers is hard to come by. If your site is an intranet, you have control over the kinds of browsers being used and the connection speed of your users. External sites don't have this advantage. Are users viewing with VGA monitors and thus requiring a 640 x 480 pixel (less actually) screen design? Do they use 14.4-kbps modems, or do they have T-1 access? Are they AOL users? Are they using Netscape or Explorer, Macs or PCs?

Make decisions based on market research, by surveying your target audience, and sometimes simply by diving in (i.e., "Explorer2.0 users just won't see some features"). Write these standards down, and make sure everyone agrees to them.

Think it through/write it down. When it comes to the above issues and others, write them down. Make your client or manager sign off on the standards. It may seem silly to have a signature on paper that states "We're designing for Explorer 4.0 and Win95," but I have seen numerous projects go awry when someone involved calls and says "I'm looking at this on Windows3.0 and Netscape0.9, and it's all messed up."

Stick to your project plan. Be tough. You had all those meetings to discuss the migration months ago, so don't be sidetracked by a new manager who wants his department added for next week's launch. Define before you build. Some folks are so excited about the medium that they want to see results right away, or worse, they want to "check in" on the progress daily. This kind of process is like having to clean up your room every single day in anticipation of having houseguests at the end of the week. It may serve a purpose (making mom and dad happy), but it's not efficient.

Experience has taught us that deviations from the plan always have a cost. For example, adding a feature or a new area to your site cannot be accomplished without more work. Amazingly, many people think it can. One way of dealing with "scope creep" is to draw the line on when new things can be added and stick to it. If something absolutely must be added, you'll likely have to drop something else. Consult with the key people on the team (not just the sales or marketing members), and decide how to handle it. Just because it takes a week to edit and crop all of the images for an area does not automatically mean you save a week by dropping that area. Web site building is not linear and there are many dependencies.

Hire people. This should go without saying, but most likely your boss will expect you to accomplish the project without any new people. It is highly unlikely that you have the right people already on staff to build a web site. The more complex it gets, the more likely it is that you'll have to bring in outside contractors. Get references for these vendors and check them thoroughly. A team that writes bad code can make the difference between a project that already includes a phase two and one where the underlying site structure is so weak that phase two requires a rewrite from the ground up.

Don't become enamoured with new technology. There are so many ways of adding interactivity to a web site that it can be scary. Probably a dozen one-to-one/personalization tools are on the market right now. Web site management tools are even more numerous. But be careful which technologies you pick. The most important thing you can remember is "Open is good, closed is bad." Don't get sucked into proprietary technologies. Trust your programmers' opinions on these tools, for they are the ones most likely to use them. On the other hand, some programmers only like to use the most complex, command-line-driven tools out there, so be aware that they have biases too.

COMMUNICATIONS, INC.