Dear Mr. Unsolicited Advice:
How can I give that down-home just-plain-folks feel to my catalog collection in this age of cold, impersonal, eCommerce stuff?
— Vexed in Virginia
Dear Vexed, I’m glad you asked. The big problem you face is that expectations for perfect, quick, easy catalog ordering have risen to unprecedented levels. If you want to harken back to an older era, your only choice is to add imperfections to your system — preferably a lot of them. This will build interpersonal ties between your firm and your possible (or former) customers that will be something to be proud of.
So, for example, if you have a website, make sure it’s flaky as all hell. While the ideal is to have it lose everything when you go to actually submit an order, you can also get a lot of mileage from having someone merely trying to go to your main page come up with a message like, “Warning: mysql_connect(): Lost connection to MySQL server during query in ./includes/functions/database.php on line 19. Unable to connect to database server!”
Of course, you have a phone number in your catalog, but that doesn’t mean a commitment to actually answering the phone. When someone calls that number, make sure you tell them in pleasant tones that you’re open from 9-to-5 on weekdays, and please call back then. Inaccessibility is the key to success in the old business era, and you’ll have it in spades.
Make sure, though, you don’t actually tell them what time zone you’re in. That might actually let them plan on when to call you! Instead, just say “9-to-5” and let them dedicate their lunch hour to the prospect of getting hold of you! Remember, if they make an effort to reach out to you, even after that, it’s a customer relationship that will survive anything.
Yes, follow a strategy like that, and folks will know that, even in this tech-savvy world of ours, there are still people willing to go the extra mile to make sure they can’t.