Breaking down the silos

I find it amazing that those who build and run sites seem to think that the only way or the best way of interacting with potential purchasers and customers is on-line.

So finding a phone number to talk to someone is made unusually difficult in many cases - for instance try finding a way to get hold of someone from blogger.com, e-mail/phone or any other which way.

When selling something, which is kind of the point in the end analysis, human interaction (ie with a call centre) will tend to work best in terms of visit to sale conversion. And yet many sites must think it is a massive failure of the site if the visitor decides to call rsther than to transact on-line.

Kind of missing the point and getting caught up in a silo mentality that once someone is on-line the only answer is on-line.

A bit more thought and appreciating multi-channel touchpoints are a good thing would be a step forward. After all in moving from a push to pull marketing model, you should be providing what the visitor wants ... including the ability to talk.

And this is even more important when customers are involved ... the human touch seems to be something to be avoided by many, instead of something they should be embracing.