Launching a business website involves more than choosing the right platform and getting products, payments and other operational pieces in place. A strong launch requires businesses to consider customer needs alongside their own operational priorities before the platform goes live. Members of Forbes Business Council share some steps businesses should take before launching a platform to create a clear, seamless customer experience from day one. I cherry picked my favorites and added my bits.
Define Your Ideal Customer
Get painfully clear on your ideal customer—not just their demographics, but the problem they’re trying to solve, what they fear getting wrong, and what proof they need to move forward. I like to use personas to better understand the target audiences.
Gather Customer Feedback Before Design
Survey your customers and listening to them as part of your design research. Ask them, “If I were to build a platform that would enable you to do X in a better way, would you use it?” Even better, make a quick, low-fidelity prototype of your key workflows and have them click through it and tell you what they think while trying to complete their task.
Align Customer Promises with Operations
If your business promises fast delivery, easy returns or responsive support, make sure the teams and systems behind it can consistently deliver. A smooth customer experience begins with keeping every promise your brand makes.
Clarify Product, Price and Delivery Details for Shoppers – and AI
Shoppers – and the AI agents shopping for them – judge the same three things: best product, lowest price and fastest delivery. Before day one, decide how you compete on all three. Then, publish the specifics: the real price, the real arrival date and the real return terms. A person reads them to feel confident. An agent reads them to decide whether to recommend you at all.
Build A Waitlist
It’s one of the best ways to test your customer experience before you have anything to sell. A waitlist allows you to test your messaging and your offer with real people and adjust as needed. With a waitlist, you’re also building a list of interested potential customers before investing heavily in products or services. When it is time to launch, you’re not starting from zero or guessing what your customers want.
Map Expected Customer Paths
Map out all predicted paths you expect a customer to take; from the moment they land on your page to the final payment confirmation. Map exactly what your customer sees, hears and waits for in each of those moments, and staff it before a single order exists.
Be especially aware of where things can go wrong. What happens when the size is wrong, the card declines or the parcel vanishes on day nine? Clarity is cheap when everything works; it is only proven when something doesn’t.
Test it on Every Device
If a step feels confusing or slow to you, it will be twice as frustrating for a customer. Also, make sure your tracking system is working properly from day one. If you can’t clearly see where your visitors come from and where they drop off in the buying process, you won’t be able to fix problems or grow your revenue effectively.
Test With First-Time Visitors
Before launch, have someone who knows nothing about your business try to buy something while your team stays completely silent. Provide no hints, and don’t explain the terminology. Watch where they hesitate or backtrack. Teams are too familiar with their own products to spot obvious friction. Every question that each tester asks is something the platform should answer on its own.
Pilot First
Soften the stakes by framing a launch as “early” or “priority access” so that people feel like they’re part of a special moment and root for you rather than judge you. Thank people for every piece of feedback and treat each slip as a chance to delight by correcting graciously.
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Plans don’t fail, people fail to plan. A little bit of planning, designing, and testing before you launch can save you rework and create happy, long-term customers.