How not to design a corporate website– Aldi.com
I’m a customer of Aldi locally, since it’s great to go in a store and not have to walk a mile to find the three things you need when you’re in a hurry, unlike the big box supermarkets that I hate with a passion for that reason. Aldi in Easton PA is a friendly place to shop, with a great staff. But there are certain frustrations with things that aren’t always available (what the staff calls the “damned seasonal stuff”.) This bugs me, and from what I’ve heard from other customers, as well as Aldi staff at the local store, I’m not the only one that’s bugged by this. There are also some items that come with three varieties packaged in a box. Usually one variety sells out repeatedly and early, and, according to staff, they can’t order/restock until all the varieties reach a certain low level. Also according to staff, customer issues that are passed on by staff to management are not valued.
Every package from Aldi has a guarantee on it. It also has the website address listed in a way that hints you can voice any concerns and give customer feedback on the website. Nothing can be further from the truth. The website has no contact form. When you click on the “Customer Service” link (which is hidden in an onmouseover event, and most likely less than accessible to anyone using assistive technology) there is a bunch of marketing language, and instructions at the bottom on how to send them a letter via SNAILMAIL. In this internet day and age, with the cost of stamps and gas, and all the green concerns of delivery and paper, the company expects its customers to send valuable customer feedback via SNAILMAIL? Okay, so I’ll call them on the phone instead. OOPS! No corporate phone number ANYWHERE on the website.
Now, that’s not the only thing wrong. The photo of whole coffee beans on the front page hints that this is a product available at Aldi. It isn’t. The website, as I’ve mentioned before, isn’t very accessible, since it depends on javascript and other things that may trip up assistive technology, which may bite Aldi bigtime if Target loses their lawsuit. I’d venture to say their search engine placement probably suffers as well. There is nothing sold on the website, despite the fact that a lot of the stuff featured on the website is not available at my local store, which is a huge missed opportunity for them as well as an annoyance to me.
But I can’t voice any of these concerns. There is no contact form, and there is no phone number. This is such a HUGE mistake. Both is preferable, but at least one would allow me to voice my concerns.
So Aldi won’t hear from me that I hate stocking up on Beaumont cappuccino in the spring to tide me over until fall, as do other customers as well. Aldi won’t hear from me that it’s annoying that they’re not offering the Fit and Trim mint ice cream sandwiches. Aldi won’t hear from me that I might TRY whole bean coffee if they offered it, and don’t buy anything but whole bean coffee, which means I don’t purchase coffee from Aldi. Aldi won’t hear from me that I don’t want trans fats and high fructose corn syrup in my foods and would purchase more if most of their stuff didn’t include trans fats and/or high fructose corn syrup. Aldi won’t hear from me that I and other customers would very much like it if they offered a couple breakfast cereals that didn’t have any added sugar. Aldi won’t hear from me that I’d buy my milk from Aldi if it was from dairies that didn’t use Bovine Growth Hormone and was clearly labelled as such. Aldi won’t hear from me that some of the electronics they’ve featured on their website are ones I would have purchased if they’d been available either at my local store or offered for purchase on the website.
Am I to assume from this that Aldi doesn’t care what Customers want? Am I to assume from this that they only pay lip service to Customer Service? That’s what this website says to me and others who try to use it. And it is a huge marketing mistake to essentially tell your customers you don’t give a shit what they want.
Technorati Tags: Web Design Mistakes, Marketing Mistakes, Aldi
May 9th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Two more examples:
honda.com (no email form)
drphil.com (All flash and takes 30 sec.+ to load on DSL — High javascript load)
May 9th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Q.Y.B.!
Come on, write a letter. This is an minor inconvenience no doubt, but that is how the prices stay low at Aldi. Less customer service people, equals lower costs to everyone involved. In my experience the majority of customer service solutions get tied up by people to lazy to use self serve options to take care of their questions. (Store hours, locations, return policy, etc) Your concerns are valid, but your time/energy spent here could have been directed into typing up your concerns and mailing them instead.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Wow, they could handle that within the form, with dropdowns in the subject line, so a question about hours and locations will redirect the user to the proper area of the website, and only things that aren’t dealt with on the website are passed on to CS.
The point is not to slam Aldi so much as to point out what effect a badly designed website will have on the customer experience. And that is, after all, what this post is about, since this is a blog about web design.
The irony here is that I’m sure that Aldi, like most corporations, pays out lots of dough to focus groups and marketing weenies to find out much of the information that customers are willing to give them for free, given the means to do so on a website. Hmm, pay marketing and PR idiots thousands and thousands of dollars to have focus groups and run surveys? or pay a CS person or two to handle website feedback, and train them well?