Download annoyances

I suppose I’m being a bit of a crank here, but I’ve been doing a lot of market research work lately, which means I’ve been roaming around the web grabbing documents of interest here and there. Which means I’ve been filling out a lot of forms so that I can download white papers, data sheets, and whatever else catches my eye. Since I am not a “live one” for any of the companies I’m downloading information from, they probably don’t give a hoot what I think about their information forms - but if I were a prospect I’m sure that I’d be equally annoyed. Anyway, here’s what’s bugging me:

Country lists:

You are a software company, based in the United States - not an international airline based in the Seychelles. I’m guessing that most of your customers, in fact, come from the U.S. of A. And I’m also guessing that your prospects from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Croatia, the Falklands, Greenland, the Holy See, the Isle of Man, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Ukraine would not feel insulted if they had to go down through the list looking for their country’s name. Especially those prospects from the Holy See. I don’t think it’s Ugly American to put the United States at the top of your pick list. Stop being so PC! If you’re an American company, and most of your customers are from here….Come on. If you also sell a lot to Canada, Mexico, or anyplace else, it might be okay to add another country or two up top before going alpha. Similarly, companies from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Croatia and the Holy See are perfectly welcome to put their country’s name on top of the list. I really won’t mind.

Multiple info entries:

Think about it. If I’m grabbing one data sheet, I may also want to grab a white paper. A lot of websites let you enter your information once, and then download as much collateral as you want. Shouldn’t yours? You’re really gaining zilch out of having me enter my information in there seven times. In fact, you may be losing, as by my sixth or seventh fill-in the blanks, I’m apt to indicate that I’m from Burkina Faso or the Holy See when I have to pick a country for myself. Again, I’m just a market researcher, but if I were a prospect, and you made me enter my info in so many times, I might start to ask myself what other processes you have that are customer-unfriendly. Meanwhile, for the companies that only ask once: you sure know how to treat a guest.

 

Big fat files:

In this era of big fat bandwidth, and big fat storage, maybe it shouldn’t bother me that I’m downloaded a colossally big fat data sheet with one page of information and one page of big fat color graphics. If you want to print this sort of collateral, knock yourself out. But I don’t want to waste my toner cartridge on it. And, unless the graphics that are bit hogs are diagrams or flows that actually add information, it really doesn’t make that much sense to have me download them, does it. I’m not 100% anti-graphics - maybe just 99% - but big fat downloads make me wonder whether your products and prices are bloated, too. Just saying….

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