Do You Neglect This Kind of Testing?

You're probably aware that testing different variations of your sales copy is a good way to let the market decide which of your headlines, guarantees, lead, calls to action, price points, etc. appeals to them the most. And they'll tell you by voting with their wallets.

But there's another kind of testing you must perform that's of paramount importance, and it has nothing to do with your headline or lead. In fact, not performing this testing could cost you sales and existing/future customers, as well as cause a freeze on your merchant account, and even potential legal problems.

I'm talking about testing the end-to-end mechanism of your entire sales process, from order to fulfillment...from support to customer service.

Although this testing is especially important when you have an automated system in place on the Internet, it's not just limited to online sales. In fact, these "gremlins" can affect just about any sales process. But it's especially important to test when you have a mail order or online automated fulfillment system. Things can break, fall through the cracks.

To give an example of what I mean, I just ordered a product online, a software package that required a download upon completion of the order.

I entered my payment information, and was notified that I would receive an email with my download information. If there was any problem receiving the email, I was offered a support link.

So I waited. And waited some more. I checked my email filters. Nope. Not stopping anything.

In the meantime I continued to work and request other information that required fulfillment links to be emailed to me. Got them all fine. But still waiting for my software fulfillment I ordered.

Finally, I clicked on the support link and was taken to a web form. I filled out all of the information, but left the "receipt number" blank, as I hadn't received the product, never mind a receipt number.

Yep. You guessed it. The form would not proceed without the receipt number. So I tried again, typing something into the receipt field. Rejected again. I was told to go back to the order page and purchase the product to get a receipt number before they would talk to me. Hmph!

Now I had to stop and consider how to contact the seller. The sales page was sparse, and had no contact information. However, I knew the seller maintained a blog, so I faced a dilemma. Should I post a comment on the blog pointing out the problem and open it up for all the world to see? I didn't want to do that, because I knew the issue wasn't intentional on the seller's part.

Luckily, I did eventually receive the download link via email nearly an hour later. But...still no receipt number. However, the email included an email address for support.

So being the nice guy I am, I decided to email them just to let them know about the oversight on their part. That way they could fix it and not risk alienating additional customers.

Well, off the email went, and I went on to other things. However, a short time later, I received an automated response to my email: "Please go to [support link] for support." Yeah, it was the same link I tried before. Since I still never received a receipt number, I wasn't going to try that again.

So I let it go. I'm not going to chase this guy all over the place to try to track him down just so I can tell him to fix something he should have tested from the start.

Listen, we all know web servers get bogged down, and emails can take who-knows-how-long to get to their destination at times. Spam filters and other factors can add even more complexities and delays. Look at a company like Microsoft who has fifty-million testers, and the software still gets released with bugs.

No matter how carefully you plan everything, things can still go wrong. Maybe things test successfully at first, but then the server load introduces other factors that are difficult, if not downright impossible to test when the site goes live.

But in my case, the receipt number is not one of those things. It should have been tested and fixed prior to launch. And sadly, this happens more than we'd all like to admit.