Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Root Cause Diagnosis



It didn’t take long for me to spot one thing I would deem a mistake on this page. And that thing was the location and size of the ‘Request a Local Quote’ button. Even with it circled it took me longer than it should have to find the button. The reasoning for this is relatively simple. Through my years of using the Internet I have almost always scanned the top and left side of a page first. On Ford’s page the quote button is along the right side, one of the later places I will check. The button also suffers due to its size. It’s not very large and compared to rest of the page (which is appearing to be more exciting) it is quite dull. In addition to that the price is already listed right above it which would make me not consider scanning the page further to find a quote request. 

There are a number of things Ford could attempt in order to make more people request a quote. First of all they could move the button and make it stand out more. There have been extensive studies that track user viewing habits so using those they can place the button somewhere that’ll be seen more quickly. Ford can make extensive use of social media to link people to the quote page. In Twitter it’d just take a catchy phrase or offer followed by a link straight to a quote to draw people in. They can do something similar in Facebook to draw in traffic to where they want them. 

4 comments:

  1. Michael,

    I 100% agree -- the size and location of this button is just, odd. They need to reposition it to make it more prominent and noticeable.

    Do you feel that there could be other factors discouraging people from using the quote request?

    Good post!

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    1. I've never really looked into purchasing a car but when I see the 'Build & Price' option first I am less likely to then go request a quote. If Ford wanted more people to request quotes I think they should make the 'Build & Price' a little less aggressive in getting my attention.

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  2. The location of the button is clearly a problem...I thought Ford could have done a better job of making the button standout from the other buttons.

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    1. I have the feeling Ford was mostly focused on showing off the car. So in that regard I think the page manages successfully. However if they wanted people to request quotes then yes, that location of the button is problematic.

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