Thanks for your interest, now leave us alone

Here I am, money in hand, looking for a specific software solution.

While visiting about a dozen sites, several times my efforts to download are thwarted by a glitch in the process - where something should work just fine, but for some reason, it doesn't.

I usually send an email to the company when this happens. I seldom receive a reply.

Way too many software companies are asleep at the switch. They're so busy trying to get new leads, they ignore people who are much further along in their buying process.Not a good idea. It is the active buyer, the one who is perfectly willing to pay you - today (as in NOW, this minute) - who interacts with your site and sees screens like this one:

Perhaps the person who wrote this copy was having an off day.It is rather ironic that this phrase - "We will deal with it as soon as we can" - is coming from a company called Corporate Angels.This copy sends a terrible message - especially to the person who is trying to say, "I tried spending money here and couldn't."

What the buyer actually "reads" when he sees this message is: "We're busy doing other things, and when we run out of those important things, we'll get around to your sorry, pathetic, and really unimportant request."

The lesson? You need to have someone going through your website on a regular basis, taking the steps that a buyer would, to find these hidden-but-important screens. That person should use different types of computers (Mac and a PC), and different browsers (Firefox, for example!).

Once I saw this dismissive message, I assumed that 1) I wasn't going to be hearing from these people any time soon and 2) someone else was going to get my money.

My assumptions were correct in both cases.