If you owned a website as part of your business, then you would be interested in looking at a number of statistics to help understand what was working and what wasn’t. Of course you’d be highly interested in the number of unique visitors that came to your site, and how they got there, but at the same time you would also want to look at how long they stayed on your site and where they got to before they left.
This is what’s known as your ‘bounce rate’, and it serves as an indicator as to whether or not you are engaging your audience and what you might be doing to put them off.
As a commercial business owner, you may not have access to quite the same amount of data, but you should equally be interested in the customers who approach your business and then just turn away and leave.
Chances are you see, if you run a restaurant, a shop or a hotel, that you will have some visitors who find you, walk in through the door, and then immediately turn around and leave. What you need to find out, is what’s making these people leave, and how you could possibly have hung onto them and gotten them to look further.
Here are some of the common culprits and what you can do about them…
You Don’t Have What They Came For
If you run a store or a restaurant, then you are going to get some customers who come to you looking for a very particular thing – whether that’s a lighter, or perhaps some Italian food. Of course if you don’t sell that thing then they’re likely to leave and there’s not that much you can do about that without changing your whole business. What you can ensure though, is that people aren’t leaving who can’t find things even though they’re there.
It’s highly important if you own a store then to keep the items that bring the most customers in somewhere where they can be seen. Even if you keep those items at the back of the store (to encourage browsing), you should make sure that you make your visitors aware that you do stock them. Likewise if you run a restaurant you should keep a menu in a prominent place and advertise your specials etc. to draw in interested buyers.
You Look Run Down
This is a bigger problem – you look run down. If you run a hotel or a restaurant for instance, and you have old carpet, dirty walls and windows, and a bad odour, then people aren’t going to want to do business with you. Of course maintenance is important then, but likewise you should also make sure that you design your property to be as timeless as possible, and to be as easy to keep clean as possible.
A great example? Using concrete or other stones for your flooring rather than carpet. It won’t age as quickly and it will be much easier to clean with a simple and quick mop.
Likewise you should try to avoid having too much clutter that will be difficult to clean, and you should make sure you have regular cleaning services come around to maintain your premises.
People Are Self-Conscious
Have you ever been to a mobile phone shop and felt afraid to browse because the staff are watching you intently and continuously trying to hard sell their items? People in the US don’t like to feel like they can’t browse without being scrutinised and this is a quick way to make them feel uncomfortable to shop in your store. While you need to think about security, you should also give your visitors as much privacy as possible at first and make sure they feel relaxed.
While making these changes won’t guarantee you’ll keep all your customers, it will certainly help you to avoid losing a few unnecessarily. Think back to your own experience of walking into commercial businesses… what makes you feel comfortable and what makes you want to leave?
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License: Creative Commons image source- License: Creative Commons image source
- License: Creative Commons image source
The author of this article, Neil Harper, is an employee at DaVinci, providers of heated driveway systems in CT. Neil loves gardening and maintains the garden at his home on weekends.