Yesterday I received a Roku 2 XD as a gift. In the past I’ve had a WD Live digital media player and thought it was great. I was of course excited and went downstairs to set it up on my non-connected TV. The initial setup went smooth enough with the following exceptions:
- Computer Required – The box claim is Roku is the best way to stream content without a computer. But they neglect to tell you that you must go to your computer to register the unit before it will work. OK, so I have computers in my house and a smart phone that meant I did not even have to get up off the couch. No real biggie, but still annoying.
- Credit Card Required – The big annoyance was that during the registration process they ask for your credit card information. From my point of view there is absolutely no reason in the world I’d want to give Roku my credit card info. None. Roku does not mention this in the set up materials in the box or on their sales pitch on their web site.
At this point I’m thinking, oh well, guess I’ll just return it and get another WD Live box off eBay. But then I decided to check Google to see if anyone else was as bothered about this as I was. Turns out there were. In fact, helpful folks in the forums will tell you that by simply calling Roku (during business hours) they will waive the credit card requirement. How thoughtful of them to make me take extra and unnecessary steps to use their product.
Lesson: Remove barriers to entry
I’m sure there are lots of folks with no problem giving yet another company access to their credit card info, but I”m not one of them. Besides the fact that Roku does not need this for their box to operate, they went about asking for it in all the wrong ways.
Ask, Never Demand or be Sneaky
In all things on and off line companies should behave in the following manner:
- Notify users up front of all requirements to use a service, before they buy it or try to set it up.
- Give users the opportunity to Opt-out of non-mandatory information gathering without having to search forums to find out how to do so.
Roku did neither of these. They just assumed I’d hand over private information with no indication that it was not mandatory.
Lesson for Online Businesses
- Always tell your whole story up front. If you require certain steps, outline them, including the optional ones.
- Don’t require consumers to take extra steps to use the product in the way you and they intended to use it.
- Always ASK for information in an Opt-in format, and don’t be sneaky.
- And never, ever, make a user have to search outside resources to find information you should have readily available on your site.
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