I’m talking about your customer focus, nothing else, honest!
Customer Focus Rating Report Sample
When somebody asks US what it is WE do, at least most of US with a business to run, customers to find, leads to follow up and a host of other concerns, like most people WE are quite able to rattle on about all the things WE think are important to US in getting them done.
I’M as guilty as anyone, but, when eyes start to glaze over and attention wanders, if WE’RE as observant as WE like to think WE are, take a step back and ask if WE really understood the question.
Depending on the situation, whether social or business, the real question may have been more about how what we do might be able to help them either solve a problem or answer a question they have.
There’s no confusion, however, when a visitor or searcher first lands on your web site! They have already asked a question and by clicking on your search result hope to find the answer!
First things, first!
When they first arrive tell them as quickly as possible who you are and what you do and what your USP (unique selling proposition) is! Saving them money, improving efficiency, finding new staff, reducing costs etc.
And, there’s research to show that you only have about 7 seconds to do it!
To put is crudely; what’s in it for them! That’s not to be overly critical or disingenuous, it’s being honest. They’re not really interested in how good you think you are or what you had for breakfast, they simply want to know if you can help answer their question or solve their problem.
How you do that is by focusing on them and how you communicate with them. You do that by the content on the page and the words you use.
And now for the WeWe!
Is your web copy talking all about all the wonderful ways your visitors can benefit from your products or services or do you talk all about your company, the great features of your products and services? Is the focus of your copy YouYou or WeWe.
This isn’t a new idea. It’s been around in the advertising industry, almost from the beginning of last century, where it’s well known that benefits sell products not features, and discussed in relation to web copywriting back in 2001 on ClickZ.com under the title of It’s the Customer, Stupid by Bryan Eisenberg.
But, there’s help at hand. As part of the above article there is a tool, The WeWe Monitor, that tests your copy for WeWe and scores your copy giving you a CFR (Customer Focus Rate) rating:-
As explained in the article:
As you can see, we parse your page for self-focused words such as “I,” “we,” “our,” and your company name (which functions much like “we”), as well as for customer-focused words such as “you” and “your.” Then we calculate several ratios that indicate whether your visitors are likely to perceive you as genuinely focused on them. The most important is the customer focus ratio (CFR). That’s the ratio of customer-focused words to self-focused words. Then you can compare all the CFRs with a complementary set of self-focus ratios. Run the tool to check your site; run it to check a variety of sites. You’re likely to have an eye-opening opportunity to see your site through your customer’s eyes.
[The WeWe Monitor site appears to be unavailable. Try the Customer Focus Calculator (gives very similar results).]
It helps you discover what your word choices say about where your focus really lies. It is not perfect as there are many variables at work but gives a reasonably good sense of the impression you are making on your prospects and potential customers.
It could help you see where changes could be made, quickly and easily that will help increase your leads & sales.
