In Chapter 2 of my book “What is Global Marketing for Small
Business?” I write about how small businesses can use geolocation
technology to provide localized content on their websites in order to deliver a
better user experience for their customers. Geolocation technology is an
excellent global marketing tool that can deliver many benefits for both
marketing professionals and consumers when used properly. However, when poorly
implemented, the same technology can leave customers (in this case me)
extremely frustrated and hesitant to use a businesses’ website or even purchase
from that business again. Let me explain by describing a recent experience I had
while traveling in Europe.
In early July I had the pleasure of traveling to Venice Italy
to attend a meeting with a company named LAE Electronic, S.R.L., a small
controls manufacture in Oderzo. Following my meeting I was scheduled to travel
from Venice to Manchester
U.K.
on a Swiss Air flight the next morning. Like most business travelers today, I
attempted to check-in for my flight from my hotel room using Swiss Air’s
website. Upon doing so I immediately discovered that the only language choice
available on Swiss Air’s website was Italian. Not being able to speak Italian,
I began looking around the Swiss.com home page for a button or link where I
could change the language from Italian to English. To my surprise, the country
choice button located at the top of the home page (so small you can barely
notice/find it) provided just one choice: Italian. This singular choice really surprised
me as most, if not all, websites today offer English as a second language
choice.
Not to be deterred, I went to Google and searched for ‘Swiss
Air English check-in” and found a link that should have taken me directly to
their English language check-in page. Upon clicking the link I was even more
surprised (and frustrated) when the English language link was immediately
redirected back to the Italian language website. It was at that point that I
realized that the Swiss.com website was identifying my location as being in Italy (probably
from using IP Address geolocation technology) and then automatically
redirecting all my attempts to access their English language pages back to the
Italian website. Needless to say, after wasting what seemed like an exorbitant
amount of time, I finally gave up and decided to print my boarding passes and
check my bags at the Venice
airport to following morning.
Now having to check-in at the airport may not seem to be a
big deal to some people. However, experienced travelers know that most airlines
offer seating upgrades and reduced baggage fees when checking-in online. Experienced
travelers also know that to receive these special deals you need to be the
“first in line” by checking-in online as soon as permissible – typically up to
24 hours prior to your flight’s departure time. Consequently, besides wasting
my time, not being able to check-in the night before may have cost me a premium
seat assignment as well a discount on checking my bag had this been a U.S.
based airline.
So as you can see, a poor website localization design can cause
frustration for your customers which will lead to a less than “5-Star” customer
experience. And, it could actually cost your customers financially in the case
of missed price discounts offered online versus pricing for in-person services.
This will frustrate customers even more.
The global marketing lesson to be learned here is, if your
business website caters to customers around the world, and uses geolocation
technology as a part of your localization process, make sure your customer
always has other language options that include English at a minimum. Otherwise
your global “dot-com” website really isn’t global. The other lesson is, test,
test and test some more by always putting yourself in your “customers’ shoes”
to assure a consistent and positive 5-Start customer experience when visiting
your businesses’ website.
Note: to be fair to
Swiss Airlines (which is a quite good airline) the problems I experienced using
their website from Italy did
not appear when using the same Swiss.com website from the United States.
When used from within the U.S.A.
the Swiss.com website presented me with multiple options to change my country
location, and language, which were not available from Italy. It may
be that the problem is only present in Italy.
