Over the coming weeks, I am going to share real-life examples of businesses totally missing opportunities and getting the basics of digital wrong. The aim to share these mistakes so you can do better yourself. And to also provide you with some solutions to do it better.

Let me share a recent experience with you. Late last year I saw a post on Facebook with a cute jumpsuit I thought I’d like. So, I go to their store and although I wasn’t quite sure about it, I bought it. But got it home and realized I didn’t like it and wouldn’t wear it so rang them immediately.

Even though I had only bought it an hour ago I was told I couldn’t get a refund. I went back next day to get a credit.

They share new stock on their FB page however the images are poor and obviously taken from a catalogue.

I kept checking their Facebook page for new stock and last week saw a top that I liked. I left questions on their Facebook page which was unanswered, called the store 3 times and then eventually went out of my way and called into the store.

Only to be told it was not in stock yet. Despite the Facebook post saying it would be in stock that day.

Tired yet? It doesn’t end yet…..

So, then I get a call from the owner with a bunch of excuses for their poor service and she tried to make me feel bad for my poor experience with her store. That made no sense to me at all.

After all that she told me she couldn’t hold the shirt. Once I told her about the entire experience with her store she agreed to give me a refund on the original purchase from last year.

Overall a very exhausting & poor experience and do you think I’ll shop there again? Never!! And how many people have I told about it already?

This all started with a Facebook post. And then a poorly managed path to purchase.

So, what should you do?

If you are going to share images of stock for sale on your social media pages, then manage the process. Answer customer enquiries quickly and make the process of buying from you easy. You need to react to the responses you get and do so quickly. The next thing to show up in my feed could be another product from your competition.

So, if you think that what you do on your Facebook page doesn’t impact your sales, think again. You never know where customers are coming from, how they want to buy from you and how often they want to buy.

Remember this is a chance to create a customer for life. A bad first experience on both your digital channels can cost you more than you think. It impacts more than just that one person as word of click means one lost customer can turn into many very quickly.