Content expert Gerry McGovern on making the customer king

Having trouble reaching out to customers? Maybe you're not thinking about who's really important in your (business) life. We spoke to content guru Gerry McGovern about putting the customer first.

Gerry McGovern has been working on the internet for over 20 years, longer than some people working on the web today have even been alive. In that time, he has accumulated a wealth of knowledge on all things content, and funneled that expertise into a company called Customer Carewords that researches customer needs and helps large organizations become more customer centric in how they design and manage their online presence. He also maintains a very popular blog about content called New Thinking.
 
You've championed a customer-centric approach to content. What do you think customers are looking for on the web, and how can companies best meet those needs?
People want to get stuff done as quickly and easily as possible. Where companies fail is when they try and force the customer to do something the company wants them to do, rather than what they had come online to do.
 
You have often talked about decluttering content. What are some of the most common elements of websites that companies add needlessly?
Companies often talk about themselves and what they are doing. Usually, companies give too much context and background information. They go on and on, talking about what they’re going to help you to do rather than just focusing on simplifying the design so that you can do it as quickly as possible. As soon as you have to say “it’s easy” then it’s not. If it was easy, you wouldn't have to publish content saying it was easy. Usually, we see that an 80% reduction in content can lead to an 80% increase in sales.
 
You talk about the "top tasks" and "tiny tasks" of consumers – what are these and why are they important?
Top tasks are usually 3-5 tasks that are of major importance to customers. On an airline website, booking a flight is a top task. Tiny tasks are low demand but they are often highly political. I say that when a tiny task goes to sleep at night it dreams of being a top task. We find there is often an inverse relationship between task importance to the customer and the quantity of content an organization is publishing. So, the more important a task is to a customer, the less the organization is publishing and doing to address it. The less important a task is to a customer, the more the organization does to facilitate it.
 
What is the "core model", and how can it help companies reach their customers?
The core model is about designing around the task rather than the homepage or overall structure of the site. For example, when the Norwegian Cancer Society did a top tasks project they found that checking symptoms was a top task for people. So, they really focused their design effort on creating the best possible environment that allowed people to check symptoms with confidence.
 
What factors do you believe lead companies to not consider their customers enough?
Organizational ego. The company is a tribe. A company often believes that the customer is there to serve them (by buying products) rather than the other way around.
 
You've been working on the internet since 1994, which in online terms makes you an old hand! What do you think has changed in content management over that time?
Not much has changed, really. I remember back in the mid-nineties when Intel had a problem with one of their new chips as a result of people going onto communities and complaining. So, the rise of customer power and social media has been a long time coming. I think mobile has forced more simplicity into content and that’s certainly a good thing. But the basic principles of being customer-centric, of saving time and making things easy are as relevant today as they were back when I started out.