At the stockholders' meeting this past fall, I scribbled down a bunch of suggestions, comments and ideas following a very informative "hallway" discussion AE and I had with Laurinda (of whom I can't say enough positive things, BTW. My belief is that she, and others in the company, are fully aware of the shortcomings of the website, but appropriate company resources haven't yet been directed to cure them).
In any event, if I may be so bold, the main thesis I'd like to put forward is this:
Let's not delude ourselves too much and think that the business of Checkfree is actually about software, the internet, bills or keeping folks on the SI thread well-fed and happy - it's about MONEY, and moving lots of it around each day. Folks tend to get just a wee bit funny and protective about trusting their hard-earned greenbacks to just anyone. Why, after all, do you think that traditional banks spend so much money on the dark wood, bricks, mortar and ridiculously oversized, publicly visible steel vault doors, etc., to earn the "trusted agent" status they enjoy today?
The only reason CF has made it this far is because of its excellent track record of moving around the green stuff with an increasing degree of precision honed over the past 15 years, as well as striving to provide a "Platinum" level of service to its growing customer base.
Therefore, it follows that the corporate website should mirror the professionalism and concern this company has in caring for our CASH. When the President of Yahoo's fledgling e-commerce division drops by the site to do his or her due diligence, there needs to be an immediate level of comfort that millions of happy Yahoo's can point, click and pay with the "tear open and use" simplicity that Pete commonly refers to. If CF's site designers don't know what this type of professionalism looks like, they should drop by schwab.com or etrade.com or transpoint.com, or any of the sites of CF's own client banks, for that matter.
Other basic suggestions to CF:
· You need to have FAST, EASY, DIRECT, ONE-BUTTON access to the billpay demo. The "HTTPS" address will NOT work for the majority of web users who have no clue as to what a 128-bit encrypted browser is. It is particularly important, in my (humble) opinion, to fix this problem BEFORE a single new press release is put out that advertises the link to that site (you're just wasting great press on potential stockholders, customers and media folks who have absolutely no way to try out the demo).
· There should be a "message from the President," (lift it from the annual report, if need be) and a picture of Pete on the site. He's got such a great bio (David vs. Goliath, etc.)- get it to a good PR firm and use it to the company's advantage (it can be done in a way that is dignified and understated, if that is the concern - no need for Pete to go on Oprah and retell his life story). Newspaper reporters love this kind of stuff, if done well. Might also be nice to do up a "white paper" on electronic presentment, or something. Get some of the Forrester industry studies on the site. How about some bar charts showing the volume of transactions you folks process each month, and how it's grown over the past 15 years?
· Just fix checkfree.com, already! Don't feature the "product of the day," or the "press release of the day." Right up front should be a corporate mission statement, the message from Pete, and links to concise, well-written explanations, screen shots and customer testimonials about the products. Move the press releases to a "Company Info" or "Investor Relations" page.
· Like Tlindt wrote: QUICKEN IS YOUR FRIEND! Without necessarily going full-tilt "Checkfree Inside," there us a definite middle ground in dropping appropriate names. MANY potential customers will buy into the service if they are simply AWARE that CF has been the engine for Quicken billpay for the past few years. It can be as simple (and understated) as having a nicely organized page of historical press releases, or, better yet, that wonderful timeline of milestone events that is superimposed at the bottom of last year's annual report. It tells such a strong, positive story of CF's successes - why not have it featured prominently on the site?
· You also need a "what's new" section so that banks, shareholders, portals and otherwise can be kept abreast of new developments at the company.
· Get the legal folks to enjoin Microsoft from the bullsh*t claims they're making against Checkfree in Transpoint's FAQ's. This misinformation is incredibly injurious to CF's reputation. Here's the link: transpoint.com. If there's no legal remedy to prevent them from posting this information, do your own FAQ and throw up a table that professionally and factually compares the features and benefits of CF vs. TP. Believe me, your potential bank and portal customers WILL READ the FAQ's from ALL parties they are considering teaming up with - you can't NOT respond to this misinformation.
· Hire a marketing firm and get some PROFESSIONALLY photographed pictures of shiny, happy people on your site, using your products, playing with the money <g>, or whatever.
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Checkfree, following through on Pete's vision, has done such a GREAT job at developing its products and relationships, that it painful to see the company blow it on the easiest, lowest-cost element of preventing the "Betamax" syndrome. Move the website project to the front burner, get some outside marketing/corporate image experts to help the good CF folks (who are no doubt doing the best they can) ramp up the information and ease-of-use content of your site, and close that last perception gap between what CF actually does, vs. what MicroCitiPoint can only thinly promise (but boy, what a GREAT web site THEY have, yessir…)
Ok, enough for now…(please take this all in a positive, constructive vein)
Regards,
RK (ranting on a crappy, rainy, snowy, sleety day in NYC)
Also - sorry to post a (constructively) critical message on such an unbelievably up day. If you must know, this was supposed to go out at about 7:30 this morning, but my apartment lost power for about 5 seconds this morning and everything got zapped into cyber-limbo…Been sittin' here, retyping, most of the morning…
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