Thanks for your comments. Very helpful for me to know we all have the same challenges no matter which side we are in, practitioner or consultant.

On your comment “try to meet John right after the 2nd email”: agree IF I do have time.

On your comment “if 95% of people “drop” your conversion funnel”. Quite interesting point here. I guess the difference is, my goal for the “site” conversion funnel is to increase # of outputs/orders as much as possible while my goal for “my” conversion funnel is to filter out “unqualified” lead so that highly qualified lead can get through in reasonable time and efforts.

On your comment “Stating the problem/opportunity is the client job, finding the right solution (data, insight) is mine”. Absolutely agree. That’s how I see my job really is. Sometimes I have to help my internal customers to think through their problems/opportunities because they only have vague ideas and couldn’t clearly articulate what they are exactly looking for.

I was recently asked to provide the list of all the reports available in tool XYZ. When I asked “why”, the answer was “we want to see what’s available”. My answer was a resounding “no!” and I asked them to formulate their 3 highest business pains and said I would provide the data & insight to help them. They never came back…

There’s a couple of things I would do differently in the case you describe:
- if you are seeking to increase web analytics adoption, I would try to meet John right after the 2nd email. Face to face communication is critical in change management
- if 95% of people “drop” your conversion funnel (yep, you are a process, and you have conversions!), is it because their request wasn’t serious enough or because your process wasn’t efficient for them?
- as a former web architect, I always try to ask for the client pain or goal, not what they think is the right solution to solve their problem. Stating the problem/opportunity is the client job, finding the right solution (data, insight) is mine

John 1st & 2nd emails express what John think is the solution. In the 3rd one you finally got a more appropriate business objective (although still like fishing rather than being a clearly stated SMART objective).

Stéphane

I’m really looking for the next one. I would like to transition into the Web Analytics world and I’m really interested in learning more about the issues web analysts encounter on a day to day basis.