Topic 3 - Digital Design

1. In two paragraphs explain why a customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish.

A customer centric website design is so important to a company because they only care about what is important to them – getting whatever information, services, or products they came to the website for. Web sites used to be nothing more than electronic brochures. However, the Internet has become a very interactive environment for users. That is the reason why websites need to be specifically built in a way that captures the attention of visitors and keeps them coming back.

Indeed, there are four important factors that companies need to pay attention to and to follow while building a customer centric website:

• Customer: First of all we have to keep in mind that the customer has the power to leave or stay / to buy or not. The website has to provide customers' need such as: easy navigation, main information, convenient, entertainment, etc. Website need to focus on customers so that they can have a good impression on the website to come back then become a loyal customer.
• Design: The design is all about the visual appearance and the site map. Nowadays, many website uses flash animation,  color palettes, page layout and attractive imagery in order to attract visitors. There is also the issue of usability, navigation, and the site's architecture (hierarchy of the website such as home page, sub-pages, etc.)
• Content: The content of the website should be focused on communicating the message that the company wants visitors to receive. It's a kind of online marketing, the content needs to be engaging, informative and  entertaining. 

It is difficult to accomplish a customer centric web design because customers change trends along the time,so the website needs to be update every time and it is difficult to forecast it. Moreover, is it difficult to display information on a website because an online product is represented as an image, that is to say something unreal. This product can not be tried, examined or touched and for the customer it is an inconvenient when buying online.
Finally, it is difficult to know what are customers expectations through a website that is the reason why many companies have to make several surveys before creating a customer centric website.

2. Define the term 'presence'. Write an additional paragraph that describes why firms that do business on the Web should be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world.

The term "presence" has different meaning. It can be defined as "the state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence". In my opinion firms that do business on the Web have to be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world because firms in the physical world have institution, shops and people can see the product, the employee physically so it is easier for the business to be recognized. However, those businesses that operate over the web need to be able to attract customers to their website with advertising on search engines, banner ads and domain names as well as offering great products and services at reasonable prices that have a competitive advantage over major competitors. We can notice that many of them use the "community" or group" aspect to enable customers to have a general discussion related to the firms product or service through Forums, Newsletters. This kind of general discussion is an advantage for the firms to improve their product/service/website thanks to online customer's feedback.

3. Write three paragraphs to briefly describe the things that Real Estate Agents can best accomplish through (1) their web sites (2) Mass media advertising (3) Personal contact.

By using internet, Real Estate Agent have the opportunity through there websites to reach more customers because through a real estate website agencies, they can display a greater number of listings as appose to a newspaper. It also offers many options such as photos, videos and virtual tours. Contrary to a newspapers, it easier for the customer to find a property thanks to search option that give the users a quick and targeted way of searching for properties that suit there needs.

A Real Estate Agent will use mass media advertising to have a presence to a large scale market and to show to customers their efficiency and reaction in dealing with potential buyers. They generally use mass media to advertise their company on television, the radio, the newspaper and catalogues. It is also useful for reaching customers who do not have access to the internet. 

Personal contact for a Real Estate Agent is very important in building a relationship between agent/seller, and agent/buyer. As the agent is willing to deal with the customer on a one to one basis to help with any problems, questions or misunderstandings they may have. That is the reason why Personal contact is all about direct assistance to customers but compare to the two others type, this type of selling can be more informative and it allows the Real Estate Agent to give more details.