How hard is it for customers to find your business — and contact information such as your phone number, your e-mail address, your web site, and your phone number?  Taking a few minutes to try to find this information as if you were a stranger could be very enlightening.   With so much competition in today’s marketplace, you don’t want to frustrate a potential new customer.

Start by taking a look at your store’s exterior, checking to make sure that your street number and store hours are clearly posted.  Ideally you should also have an OPEN sign, if yours is a freestanding location. See if there is an opportunity to give your store’s web address on your exterior signage — or to post a QR code that will take browsers to your home page if someone is browsing after hours.

Make sure the your logo is prominently featured on your storefront as well as in all your advertising, store packaging, etc.  This “branding” helps customers recognize that they are seeing something that relates to your store.

When you are offered the opportunity to select your store’s phone number, try for something simple and memorable. (I’m not a fan of using letters to that spell out the store name, though — it’s frustrating to find the numbers that correspond to “DIAL-A-GIFT,” or something similar.)  A number that ends in several zeroes, for example, is ideal.  My childhood phone number was 737-1234, which was great except for the crank calls we got from kids wanting to see who they’d reach if they dialed that.

Your web URL and e-mail address should also be simple, and relate directly to your business name.  If your store name is already taken, consider adding the word “SHOP” in front of it.   Make sure that your business name is in your e-mail address, for example [email protected].  Contact your e-mail provider and/or webmaster for information about how to do this.

Does your e-mail signature automatically give the information that those contacting you are most likely to be looking for? We have our address, phone and fax numbers, web address (as a hyperlink) and hours automatically put at the foot of any e-mail that goes out from our store — along with a mention of our most recent awards, and a hyperlink to our Facebook page. 

The most common place for customers to look for your address, store hours, e-mail address and phone number is on the home page of your web site. Making sure that this information is easy to find there will keep customers from having to play a game of hide and seek in order to find you!

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder