Recommend This!: Delivering Digital Experiences that People Want to Share

Chapter 17

Delivering the Promise

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This person is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I magine walking into a store and having everything off by just a few seconds. Associates standing still, like statues, responding to inquiries a few seconds after they are asked. It’s kind of like the television commercial aired by Cox Business (the B2B telecom product division of Cox Communications) about “business buffering.”1 (See Figure 17.1.)

Figure 17.1 Cox Communication: Business Buffering

Well, that’s exactly what it feels like to visitors when a website is slow or unresponsive. Way back in Chapter 1, we explained that the website is the heart of our digital presence, the amalgamation of all our digital activities through which we form our relationships. Some of them, like Facebook or Yelp, we cannot control. However, given that the point of all of them is to drive people back to the website, to the digital pot-belly stove in our general store, it’s critical that the website perform at the highest level possible.

The mechanics of delivering a high-performing website are just as important as providing the right content for the right relationship need. It’s all wrapped up together in a “pleasing experience,” in giving our audience what they want ...