I am a huge advocate of embracing the social web. Online presence offers relationship building opportunities like no other, be it a web site, blog, Facebook, Twitter and a variety of niche specific communities. The evolution has occurred so rapidly that many of your customers have not adapted or are lagging.
This was brought into focus for me when Mary Ellen related a story about an experience she had at a quick serve restaurant recently. A customer walked up to the counter and noticed that this location had delivery. The customer asked the counter person, “what is your delivery area?” The counter person replied that “they were not sure but thinking it was 3 miles.” The counter person added, “go online and search for the accurate info.” At this the customer, a mature individual got that glazed look over their eyes, glanced toward Mary Ellen and laughed.
Businesses need to guard themselves against the “gee whiz” of their cool internet channels and remember that everyone is not on those channels. Some people do not text, go online, read informative blogs (like this one) or even fax the order in. Some of your customers just want to use a telephone (how quaint), to call in the order and have you deliver it.
