Building Your Corporate Internet Presence Starts From Within

Does your company have a web site? Great! Now, how many people in the company know the answers to all these questions:

1) What is a web site url?

2) What’s your company’s url?

3) What’s the purpose of the web site? What does it do?

4) Who receives the emails generated by the web site?

5) How does the company save time and/or money by having the web site?

6) What’s the difference between “hits” and “visits”? Which one is more important?

Get the picture?

It’s surprising how few businesses really take the time to educate their own staff (not to mention their existing customer base!) on the existence of their web site and basic Internet matters. It seems that the fact that their web site now reaches a global audience with a potential for bringing in scads of new business is just not important enough.

Think again.

Perhaps this short-sightedness is because company leaders themselves may not yet be at ease on the Web. In fact, according to a survey done by Arthur Andersen of 1,700 senior executives from around the world, only 50% of them profess to “feeling comfortable” online.

An Internet-ignorant employee is not a good thing, especially when your business may have invested thousands of dollars to get online. On the other hand, an educated employee can be your company’s best mouthpiece when it comes to your web site, especially if they have pride in its appearance and functionality.

Plug ‘Em In

At the very least, you need to get your employees up to speed with your own web site. Anyone who comes in contact with potential customers - from customer service, to sales, to truck drivers and delivery people - ought to at least have some basic knowledge of your web site’s existence.

Once it goes live, here are a few simple things you can do to help:

• Be sure that the company’s receptionist knows your web site address (otherwise known as a “url”). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been put on hold while the receptionist goes to find out the answer to this simple question.
• Send out a company-wide memo declaring that you have a web site and giving everyone its address. Encourage folks to take a look at it and to give you feedback. Your staff may catch an embarrassing error, typo or broken link that everyone else overlooked.
• To encourage understanding of your site’s function and flow, perhaps run some sort of incentive - a give-away for the first 5 people who can correctly answer the list of questions at the beginning of this column perhaps. Or, have a quiz with questions from each of the major sections of your web sites.
• Have department managers review the web site in their next meeting (be sure they’re well-versed in it first!). You need them on your “team” to show their staff how the web site is going to benefit them by reducing their workload or bringing in more revenue to the company.

Also, managers should urge their staff to talk about the web site to outside customers and vendors whenever possible. Make sure web site addresses are added to voicemail messages, which might allay the need to stay on hold or leave a message.

• Host an optional lunchtime web site training and/or Internet review. Offer free pizza or subs for all those who attend.
• Produce a brief, handy manual that folks can keep near their computer. This manual can be laid out by web screens, each screen shot pointing out the important things for the employee to know about.

This manual should also have a Glossary to review some basic definitions of techno-speak. For example, define a server, a browser, a hyperlink, reload/refresh, hits vs. page impressions vs. visits (visits are the important thing because that tells you how many individuals actually came to your site), etc. A terrific online resource for these terms and more is NetLingo.

• Recruit “weblings,” employees who volunteer to help keep your web site fresh with regular news and facts from their departments, trivia questions, pictures from company events, or any other idea. Give them ownership by recognizing them on the site. It will lend a personal touch to your site (an important factor on the Web) and will motivate them to produce good work.

As with any form of communication, it’s important to remember to be positive, speak or write in layman’s terms, and to be ready to listen. Bring your workforce into the Age of Technology and you might be surprised at the opportunities that can unfold.

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