Responding to Objections at Your Website

The British comedy The IT Crowd has a running joke in which the IT guys have rigged up a recording to answer their phone: “IT…… Have you tried turning it off and one again? …. And you’re sure it’s plugged in? …. You’re welcome.”

Every business has conversations like this. Often, they’re the objections people have when they’re almost ready to buy your goods or services.

If you’re talking face to face with a prospective client or customer, you can deal with those concerns directly. If they’re at your website, you have a bit of a dilemma. You don’t want to put negative ideas in people’s heads if they haven’t already thought of them. But you also don’t want people to think of those things and leave because you didn’t reassure them.

You can and should deal with predictable objections, and you can do it without raising red flags for your visitors.

• Make it positive. Sweetique makes chocolate-filled eggshells. We found that U.S. consumers worry about salmonella when they think of eggshells, so we focus at the website on the very hygienic European production facility.
• Make it practical. Appsolute Media‘s iPhone cookbook is immediately appealing to younger consumers, but we found that women in their 30s and over — a major demographic for cookbooks — worried about damaging their iPhones if they took them into the kitchen. The solution? Blog posts about cell phone stands for the kitchen, and photos and videos of people safely using iPhone cookbooks in the kitchen.
• Make it fun. GraysLland Acres llama farm knows that there is a perception that llamas are mean and that they spit. A blog post “Do LLamas Spit?” with funny stories on the subject deals with the objection in an entertaining and enlightening way.