Barriers are everywhere we look and turn. Barriers get in the way of progress. Barriers slow us down. They keep us from growing, from getting better, and from learning. Barriers keep us from connecting with our consumers.
Think about it. There’s an insane number of barriers we come in contact with on a daily basis. It seems everyone wants to figure out a way to stop us from making meaningful change. We’ve got age barriers, legal barriers, experience barriers, and my personal favorite – technology barriers. We’re continually making it too hard to get things done.
I keep thinking, there has to be a better way. One of my favorite examples of this is from a few years ago. I was looking to trade in my current car for a new car. It was a Saturday and the bank was already closed. I’m an impulsive & got to have it now shopper. I asked the car dealer if I could simply pay the balance on my credit card (I had the room and credit line to do it) instead of waiting till Monday to get a check from the bank. My goal was to quickly make the purchase that day and be done with it.
Consider this situation. I am telling the dealer, I WANT to buy THIS car from YOU, TODAY. The dealer’s response was, “our policy doesn’t allow for payment to be accepted via credit card.” Well, as you can imagine, the dealer didn’t make a sale, but his competitor 3 miles down the road did 
Silly barriers stopped that dealership from making a sale. With that in mind, here’s 5 barriers everybody should look to remove.
- Captcha – Does anyone really enjoy filling these out?
- Call Center Complexity – the automated systems don’t help, please make it easy to connect with a real person.
- Data Capture – Ask for only what you need. Tell me why you need my gender for a newsletter or for that matter, my last name.
- The Receipt – Shouldn’t you be able to look up all my purchases either by name (good reason for data capture) or credit card?
- Moderated Comments – It doesn’t make sense. Moderation slows down your ability to connect with your visitors and eventually grinds the dialog to a halt.
To me the best thing you can do to truly connect with your consumers is to remove barriers. The further away you are from your consumers the further away you’ll be from innovation, loyalty, and of course the all might sale.
What are some other barriers worth removing?
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
