How To Make Consumers Work More Than Necessary (and Then Disappoint)
In preparing for a presentation last week, I wanted to add a little mustard to it by having it copied and bound for the attendees. And when you think of copies, who do you think of? That's right, Kinkos... me too. (And for the record, FedEx bought Kinkos a while back and it is now kown as FedEx Kinkos)
Not knowing where the nearest Kinkos was to my office, I went to its website to find it. As you can imagine, on the top of the homepage was a store locater link- just what I wanted. After clicking on the link, I entered my zip code on the following page (in this example, a zip code from San Jose, California) with the expectation of getting a list of options. (Interesting design side point here- look at the screen shot to the left. All of this is above the fold for my computer. So after putting in my zip code, hitting ENTER does not generate the command... and notice there is no FIND LOCATIONS button on the screen. I had to scroll down and find it at the bottom of the page). After I entered the 95125 zip I pressed the FIND LOCATIONS button expecting to be presented with a list of alternatives relative to the location I entered.
My expectations were met. On the next page presented to me, the top 5 of 500 locations near the 95125 zip code were presented to me (c'mon... 500? Maybe an issue for the next post). As you can see on the image to the right, there is a great deal of information available about each store presented: store type, address and phone, hours of operation, latest express drop-off time, latest ground drop-off time, services offered.
For store #1 presented in the image to the right, there is a link to additional information under the location's address. To be specific, the link says "View details, directions & map". As a user of this page, I read this to mean that by clicking this link, I can access information above and beyond what is on THIS page ("View details..."), I can get directions to this location ("... directions..."), and I can see a map of this location relative to the surrounding area ("... & map"). All of these assumptions are entirely based on what FedEx Kinkos told me by the language it used, the color of the text, and the underlined text- all suggest a hyper link. So I click on it and...
I am presented with a page that appears to be focused on a singular location versus 5 out of 500. I immediately see the option to get driving directions in the lower left of the page, as promised. But upon reviewing this page in the context of what brought me here (the promise of "View details, directions & map"), I am left to wonder why this specific page even exists. With the exception of the access to Driving Directions, there are no new details offered about this location that were not on the prior page and there is no map. As it is, this page is a failure as it does not deliver upon its promise.
And if I were FedEx Kinkos, I would think the ONE thing that it would want consumers to think (and more importantly, not to question) is that FedEx and its companies deliver.. sadly, not in this case.
