The Apple Store, as you know from my post of yesterday, is on my “What’s Hot” List for where to buy Christmas presents because of how well they take care of their customers. They have the products in stock — and offer engraving, gift wrapping and a super-fast delivery, all for FREE! In addition, I wanted to point out something that I found super savvy on their store, and something that all online stores should incorporate if they want to cultivate online sales.

And that magic ingredient is their toll-free number. I know, many online stores have it, but Apple’s toll-free placement is done in such a great way that I can’t say enough about it. This number is readily available on all of their pages, so for people who are a bit scared about buying online, the toll-free number is the safest route to ensuring the sale goes through and the customer doesn’t close the browser window or surf on to another site. I was shopping at the Apple Store in Luxembourg, but a different toll-free number is available on each of Apple’s 29 international stores.

I have included images to show how Apple is treating their toll-free number. These examples have been taken from http://store.apple.com the homepage of their US Store. Their toll-free number in three separate areas on each page: navigation, footer and URL. In the navigation, the toll-free number is located directly beneath the Apple Store logo. The US site differs from the other international sites because not only do they display their toll-free number under the logo, they also have included a call to action (Call 1-800-MY-APPLE). (see example 1). Of course, English is a much more compact language than other languages — “Call” in French would be “Appelez” — which is twice as long — so a call to action is included only on the US version of the site.

The toll-free number also appears in the footer. This time added a message to the number that is comforting way: “You can also order from The Apple Store by calling 1-800-MY-APPLE. ” Lovely. The footer, of course, appears on every page of the Apple Store.

Finally, the US site has something the other international sites don’t: a URL that includes their toll-free number. Because the number appears right next to the name of the domain, I would rate this as being somewhere in between casual to subliminal for the observer — but important enough to Apple that they built a directory around it.

Consumers love it when they’re treated in a special way. Apple, by giving them online and offline ordering options, makes surfing at their store even more enjoyable.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Web 2.0 SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.