Learning From Different Industries‘ Best Practices

BY Jack Aaronson
June 30, 2006

Everyindustry has unique issues. Yet industries also share common problems.When solving problems for one industry, I often find the solutions bylooking at best practices in another industry.

AlthoughI mainly focus on the problems facing multichannel retail companies inthis column, I often get e-mail from people who runbusiness-to-business (B2B) service companies, pharmaceutical companies,financial companies, real estate companies, and so forth. They asksimilar questions,believing information about retailers doesn‘t apply to them. One of ourcurrent clients, for example, is a very large real estate company.Let‘s look at how we sectionalize a typical retail site‘s functionalityand apply it to the real estate company‘s site.

Properties Are Products

There are three major user processes in the retail industry:

• Product process.This process takes the user from the home page to a product page. Itencompasses the search engine, search results page,category/subcategory pages, product listing pages, and product detailpage. This process helps the user find the correct product and providetherelevant information required for the user to purchase the product. Italso recommends other products in case the user isn‘t interested in thecurrent product, as well as up-sells to the current product.
  
  
• Checkout process. The checkout process encompasses theshopping cart page, all checkout pages, and the thank-you page. Thepurpose of this process it to quickly and easily allow the user to buythe products he‘s chosen. The process also collects customerinformation and up-sells otherproducts.
  
  
• Support process. The support process exists whenretailers (or companies) support their products. The process involvesstaying in touch with users, proactively updating them with usefulinformation tailored to their needs, providing product information andupdates, and providing amechanism for the customer to ask questions and receive answers (viaany number of channels including Web site, e-mail, and phone).

The real estate industry has similar processes:

• Property process.This process shows the user properties he may be interested in, as wellas generates interest in them. Like the product process, it encompassesthe search page, search results page, category pages, property listingpage, and property detail pages. In addition toproviding all information required for the user to decide to rent orbuy the selected property, the process is also responsible forrecommending other properties in case the user isn‘t interested in thecurrent one, as well as up-sells (such as parking spots) for thecurrent property.
  
  
• The application process. Once the user has found aproperty to buy or rent, this process ushers the user through theapplication and approval. Additionally, it should offer relevantup-sells (insurance, parking spots, etc.) and collect vital userinformation.
  
  
• Tenant support. Much like product support, this processis for an existing tenant and provides customer support for theproperty. It also provides additional services, such as letting thetenant know about pertinent information, providing a feedback mechanismfor the tenant, and enablingservices, such as "find a roommate," "sublet your apartment," "contactmanagement," and "get information about the surrounding area."

Bydrawing these parallels, we can look at best practices in otherindustries (such as retail) and see what functionality can be used inthe context of this site. The real estate site we‘re working on doesn‘tmake recommendations during the property process, for example. Itsimply lists theproperties and displays details for the property selected. Taking a cuefrom the retail world, it should offer a comparison feature, suggestalternative properties, and list up-sells (such as a parking space) theuser could opt to lease along with an apartment.

Thenext time you redesign your site or add new functionality, survey sitessimilar to yours, as well as those with wholly different businessmodels or that are in completely different industries, and seeminglyhave nothing to offer in the way of best practices. You‘ll be surprisedhow much youcan learn.

Until next time...

Jack