In the changing world of the Internet, companies frequently find themselves walking a tightrope between their desire for wholehearted brand awareness and superior client service. Nowhere is this tension described more succinctly in the problem of microsites vs. whole-scale websites. Though their roles are dissimilar, their presence has been shown to lead to the capacity to compete for a customer’s attention, but they have also been shown to decrease the quality of customer service.
Microsites: A Focused Approach
Spreadsheets are one or multiple web pages that aim to serve as a push-scratching post for a particular campaign, product, or promotion. Their laser beam-like characteristic allows brands to be targeted with their content and communicate effectively with specific audience groups.
Advantages of Microsites:
Targeted Content: They appeal to a specific demographic with tailored messaging.
Ease of Navigation: In a situation with minimal distraction, the user’s capacity to determine where they wish to go will be delivered directly.
Agility: Microsites are also easy to set up and modify and quite enjoyable in the short term.
Nevertheless, due to the hyper-specificity of microsite clustering, there may be “gaps” in customer interaction. However, in microsites, using the compartmentalization of parts of a brand, most are not prepared to provide complete help for queries of customers whose needs go beyond the scope of their expertise.
Websites: The Comprehensive Ecosystem
Traditional websites are the foundation on which a company’s web presence rests, and a company may use websites as a unified portal for all of its information, customer support, and business. In contrast to microsites, internet sites are intended for a general audience, and so encompass the full spectrum of business requirements in their justification.
Advantages of Websites:
Holistic Experience: Customers can consult all information about a product on the Internet in the product catalog, FAQs, and support services in a single place.
Brand Cohesion: Websites reinforce the brand’s identity with consistent messaging.
Customer Service Integration: More specifically, with the emergence of live chat, help desks, feedback mechanisms, etc., it is a matter of pure setup.
However, although sites have great promise for providing a solution-in-a-package customer experience, sites can also displace the customer from information overload and use information unavailable to the customer for access to the appropriate service.
Customer Service in the Microsite vs. Website Debate
This has resulted in the microsite phenomenon, and customers are currently reacting to atomized interaction with the web. Nevertheless, enterprises are to leverage or, even more precisely, employ microsites as a substitute for their corporate site. In that case, it is forthcoming for them to develop an information “silo” area which, consequently, may lead to the customer feeling useless.
Why Customer Service Suffers:
Fragmented Support Channels: Microsites could also be untested and unendorsed by customer service staff and may require a subsequent website trip to get support.
Inconsistent Branding: A microsite can offer a different context to the leading site, which can overlap in such a way as to generate ambiguity as to where/from how to direct interventions.
Limited Resources: Microstates are designed for pager duty and do not provide complete support. Things to fail critical customer needs.
Striking the Right Balance
The goal of companies that wish to guarantee that customer service is not evil is to integrate the microsites of the site with the leading site in the correct way.
Unified Support: Microsites must provide at least direct access to customer service, e.g., Live chat on the home page, etc.
Consistent Branding: Maintain stable design and presentation across platforms to build credibility and manage uncertainty.
Smart Segmentation: Create button microsites for the enterprise level and the leading site as the primary source of information and support for the general public.
Conclusion
The battle for eyeballs fought amongst microsites and sites chucks customer service to the curb. Even if microsites might be engaging in an interactivity context, it is not apparent that they can be employed alternatively and not in competition with the “large” website. Providing that the companies create a sense of community and work on the best customer experience, then the company has confidence that the audience’s needs are being satisfied without affecting service quality.