Crime #010
Treating praise from friends and family as evidence your website works for potential customers.
The explanation
You send your website to a friend. They say it looks professional. Your partner likes the colours. A former colleague tells you the service sounds great.
You have gathered opinions. But you still do not know whether a potential customer can understand your proposition or confidently take the next step.
Friends and family bring things a stranger does not: knowledge of you, goodwill and a reason to protect your feelings. They may already understand your work from conversations that never appear on the page.
That background helps them fill in missing information without noticing it is missing. A vague description makes sense because they know what you meant.
Asking them to “pretend you don’t know me” does not remove that knowledge. They cannot encounter your business for the first time again.
They may also avoid saying something uncomfortable. “Looks great” is an easier response than explaining that they would not spend money on it.
Even completely honest feedback has limits if the person would never need your service. They can tell you what they like, but their priorities may bear little resemblance to those of a prospective buyer.
Friends and family can spot a typo, flag a broken link or offer encouragement. Those contributions are useful. They do not establish whether your website works for cold traffic.
The problem is treating reassuring comments as customer evidence, then making decisions with more confidence than the feedback supports.
A stranger’s unanswered questions are more useful to this task than compliments from someone who already wants you to succeed.
How to fix it
Find people who resemble your intended customers and have no prior knowledge of your business.
Choose them by the situation your service addresses. If you help managers returning from a career break, feedback from people in that situation will be more relevant than opinions from whoever happens to be available.
Give them the page without an introduction to your business. Anything you explain beforehand could supply information the website should communicate itself.
Ask questions that reveal their understanding:
- What do you think this business sells?
- Who do you think it is for?
- What would you expect to receive?
- What questions would you need answered before taking the next step?
Avoid “Does this make sense?” or “Do you like it?” Those questions make agreement easy and tell you little about what someone actually understood.
Listen without correcting their answers. If they misunderstand something, ask which wording led them to that interpretation. Their misunderstanding is useful evidence of what the page communicates.
Pay participants for their time if needed. Make clear that payment does not depend on positive feedback.
Look for repeated confusion across responses. One person’s preference is not automatically a reason to redesign the page, but several people misunderstanding the service deserves attention.
Keep friends’ and family members’ comments in perspective. Use them for the things they can helpfully assess, while recognising their existing knowledge and relationship with you.
After making changes, use fresh participants. Someone who has heard your explanation can no longer show you what a first-time visitor would understand.
Are you guilty of Crime #010?
Book a free 30 minute call with a senior Buyable conversion expert. We will talk through your website, your goals and where you are losing potential customers.