Oh what a shambles!

This should go down as a case study on why conversion rate optimisation is crucial not just for sales, but for your Social marketing policy, your customer support and ultimately – when marketers start posting articles like this – a lesson on brand protection.

For years now I have been getting Nectar loyalty cards rammed down my throat every time I go to BP or the occasional trip to Sainsbury. Nectar is clearly developing as a loyalty card and so this Sunday morning, my wife and I decided to take the plunge. The user experience was ridiculous. The follow up options laughable. Sit back, my loyal reader, and enjoy the ride.

It started easy enough… “Just fill in the number on the Nectar card”…

Then it says “Just fill in three fields to activate your card…” but the page has 5 mandatory fields (The ones marked with stars):

Can you see ANYTHING wrong with that form? To be fair they gave me a good half a dozen chances, so I did try just three fields, checked with my wife… then tried in Safari instead if Firefox. Well… eventually I got this message: “We have locked this account for security. Please try again later or speak to one of our Nectar Helpline team via chat…”

Contacting support was going to have to happen anyway… so I found the contact us page. It’s great – you can chat by Instant Messenger it seems. Even on Sunday. Now why I have to enter a date of birth to speak to a person I don’t know I have no idea – but if you get anything wrong on that form (I put in “none” on the Nectar card number first time, then separated the DOB with a “,” instead of a “/” second time) then you get this message:

It gets worse now. If I click OK, I get caught in a loop and the ONLY way to get out is the equivalent of <Alt-CTRL-Delete> on a PC. I am on a Mac, so the only way out was:

As the Chat room was a bit of a mess. I thought I would whinge on their Facebook page. That’s the power of social networking. But there it seems Nectar’s problems are way more than a website Login issue… Look at their Facebook page threads:

It doesn’t feel like I’ll get much help there. But it gets worse again. I see that when they finally DID show the details the next thread looks even more alarming:

I’d like to add that I am NOT Louise Cassidy, or Dee Wells, or Dee, or Lala, or Marc, or Sue for that matter. My wife and I have decided that even if we DO get one of these Nectar cards registered, the rewards are hardly the holidays and family breaks and Buyagift goodies that we get with Tesco. Would you trust this organization with your personal details?

If you are going to pay lip service to social media, you had better do it right. I know that’s what we do, at my consultancy – but this is a personal post, born out of frustration that such a respected institution – with such a GOOD business model – should screw it up so blatantly. Doesn’t anyone care there? The little things count and Nectar needs an agency that is given a more effective cricket bat to hit their client around the proverbial head… before others start posting posts like this.

So to recap. I started Sunday morning trying to become a Nectar customer. Ended my Sunday morning slating them on a blog. How’s your conversion rate on that one Nectar?

Fix it, Nectar. See you in the comments?

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