Companies frequently discuss digital transformation, automation, AI, and “streamlined operations.” But most can’t get the basics right. You want me to pay you faster? Make it easier for me to give you my money. Stop hiding phone numbers, using the wrong terminology, building dead-end forms, and shipping chatbots that can’t handle the top five things customers actually call about. Web effectiveness isn’t about internal efficiency—it’s about customer friction.
The Sprinkler Company Case Study in Frustration
I got an email from my sprinkler company reminding me it was time to winterize my system. Sensible. They also announced a new payment policy: either prepay or pay at the time of service. No more invoicing after the fact.
From their perspective, this makes total sense. No more chasing money. No more mailing invoices. Close jobs faster. Focus on operations.
The problem? Execution.
- They told me I could prepay by calling them. Great. However, there was no phone number in the email. If you’re going to invite me to call, why not make it a one-click action if reading on my mobile or the number if I am reading gon my computer? Instead, I had to go to their website, dig around, and finally find it under “About Us.”
- They told me I could prepay by clicking the “Billing Tab” on the website. First of all, don’t tell me to click a tab—give me the link. Second, who calls it “Billing”? Customers don’t “bill.” We “pay.” This mismatch in language already creates a disconnect.
- When I arrived at the “Billing” page, it informed me about the convenience of online payments. But the form required me to enter an amount. How am I supposed to know how much winterization costs this year? It’s not a tip jar. The email did not give me an amount. I am stuck at this point.
- The instructions said to type “Winter” in the invoice number field. I cannot get to the invoice field until I enter a number. In a modern world, selecting or entering “winter” in a service field would have looked up that service and added the amount, allowing me to continue frictionlessly.
So the entire “online payment” option was useless. If I wanted to prepay, I still had to call. Which makes me wonder: do they secretly prefer I call because they save credit card processing fees that way?
That’s not web effectiveness. That’s digital busywork disguised as progress. The billing department, the company owner, the web development team that worked on the site, and the email team never considered the process from a customer’s perspective.
The Business Case They Missed
Here’s what companies don’t get: when you make something harder for the customer, you make it less likely to happen.
Every extra click, every vague instruction, every missing phone number increases the odds that the customer:
- Gives up.
- Delays payment.
- Calls are instead of self-serving, which costs you more.
- Cancels altogether.
The sprinkler company wanted efficiency. Instead, they created friction.
Web effectiveness is the opposite of this. It means reducing friction at every step of the customer journey. It means testing your process by actually going through it yourself—like a customer would.
The Chatbot Mirage
While I am ranting… if you think this is limited to old-school service businesses, let’s talk about everyone’s favorite “efficiency play”: chatbots.
Every major company is racing to replace live agents with bots. Fine. But here’s my question: has anyone actually run their chatbot through the top five reasons people call? Because I can tell you from experience, most of them fail miserably.
Case in point: Norton Antivirus.
I wanted to downgrade my subscription when it renewed because I no longer have clients that require it. I had too many licenses, and I wanted licenses for the remaining Windows computers I have. Seems like a basic request – renew the option on the website for three licenses. The chatbot gave me exactly one option: RENEW. No downgrade. No “change plan.” No “reduce seats.” I could call customer service who would spend most of the time trying to upsell or cross-sell me. I found the simplest option: to cancel. So that’s what I did.
They lost revenue not because I wanted to leave, but because their digital process gave me no alternative.
That’s not efficiency. That’s a leaky bucket.
The Terminology Trap
Another small but maddening issue: language.
Businesses often use their internal terminology with customers. Banks talk about “lending.” Customers talk about “borrowing.” My sprinkler company talks about “billing.” Customers talk about “paying.”
This isn’t just semantics. The words you use shape how intuitive the process feels. If I’m scanning an email for how to pay, and you bury it under “billing,” you’ve already introduced confusion. Confusion leads to hesitation. Hesitation leads to abandonment.
Want to make it easy? Use customer words. Use buttons that say what the customer wants to do:
- “Prepay for Winterization”
- “Make a Payment”
- “Reduce My Licenses”
Clarity is free. Confusion is expensive.
Automation Exists—Use It
It’s 2025. We have automation. We have AI. We have APIs. The sprinkler company’s payment form could easily:
- Let me type “winter” or my address.
- Look up my account.
- Show me the correct amount.
- Add the tax automatically.
- Give me one button: Pay Now.
Instead, I had to guess, dig up last year’s receipt, or call. Their billing page talks about the hassle of old school payment, and that their “Billing Department is entirely electronic. A later paragraph provides more detail about the benefits of online payment. Amidst all the marketing fluff is the “Pay Now” button. That is what I wanted to do – pay now – as they requested.
It’s like companies forget that the technology they hype in their marketing decks could actually be used to solve their most basic customer problems.
Inside-Out Thinking vs. Outside-In Thinking
Here’s the core issue: too many companies design processes from the inside out.
- Inside-out: “What helps our ops team close tickets faster?”
- Outside-in: “What makes it effortless for the customer to complete the task?”
Web effectiveness requires the latter. It forces you to stop and ask: if I were the customer, how would I do this?
Better yet: before you send that reminder email or launch that chatbot, test it. Send it to yourself. Walk through it. See where it breaks down.
If you can’t complete the process without guessing, clicking around, or calling for help, your customers won’t either.
Test It the Process – It’s Spring Sprinkler Turn-On
Before sending that reminder email or launching that chatbot, test the process yourself. Not in a conference room with your team nodding along, but as if you were the customer.
Here’s what that might look like for the Spring Sprinkler Turn-On email:
- Send the email to yourself. Don’t cheat—use only what’s written in the email to take the next step.
- Try to schedule and pay. If the email says “call us,” is the phone number actually in the email? If it says “click the billing tab,” is there a direct link that works from both mobile and desktop?
- Check the terminology. Does the email talk in your internal words (“billing,” “invoicing,” “tickets”), or in the customer’s language (“payments,” “schedule service,” “pay now”)?
- Look at the landing page. Does it drop the customer exactly where they need to be—or force them to click around, guess, or scroll through irrelevant options?
- Attempt the full transaction. Can you pay without having to guess the amount? Does the system confirm the right service (spring turn-on vs. winterization)? Does it auto-add the correct tax and send a confirmation email?
If you, the business owner, can’t complete the process in under two minutes without guessing, clicking around, or calling for help, your customers won’t either. And the harsh truth is—they’ll just skip it or delay it.
It’s not rocket science: walk the same path your customers have to walk. If you stumble, they will too.
The Cost of Friction
Let’s not forget—this isn’t just about “bad UX.” This is about money.
- Every extra step increases customer drop-off.
- Every call that could have been self-serve costs you agent time.
- Every confusing form delays cash flow.
- Every chatbot dead-end increases cancellations.
The math is simple: friction = lost revenue.
And yet, companies continue to invest in shiny new tech without addressing the leaks in their digital infrastructure.
Help Me Help You
The irony is my sprinkler company said it best in their own email: “By handling payments in the current time, we can close out jobs more efficiently and focus all our energy on getting to every customer in a timely manner.”
Perfect logic. But here’s the missing piece: if you want me to help you, you have to help me.
- Give me the phone number in the email.
- Give me a direct payment link.
- Call it “Payments,” not “Billing.”
- Make a “Winterization Prepay” button that just works.
- Don’t make me guess the amount.
And for the love of all things digital, test the process yourself. If it frustrates you, it frustrates your customers tenfold.
Final Rant
Web effectiveness isn’t a buzzword. It’s not a UX project. It’s the difference between money in the bank and money left on the table.
Stop thinking in terms of your process. Start thinking in terms of your customer’s process.
Because if I, a motivated customer who actually wants to give you money, can’t figure out how to do it in under two minutes? You’ve already lost.
