I'm sure you've seen the commercials: "T-Mobile, the number one 4G network" or "Verizon with the fastest 4G phone". We hear 4G everywhere, but few of us understand it means anything other than FASTER. While 4G sounds better and faster, those companies aren't being quite honest with you. So let me reveal to you a few truths, and also the lie.

Truth: 4G is better

Its true, 4G is better. 4G stands for Fourth Generation, meaning its the fourth generation of technology used by wireless phones. The first generation started in Japan in 1979, and has since expanded to today with the adoption of 3G in 2002. While 3G gave us the ability to send multimedia and lightning text messages, 4G comes with the promise of even more multimedia capability.

4G would run on a packet switching network, which would mean that information is transferred in chunks, regardless of type, in other words your text and images can be simultaneously sent. 4G will have higher, scalable bandwidth requirements and overall better support for multimedia input.

Truth: 4G is faster

4G will be significantly faster when it comes to data rates (how quickly data is transferred to and from your phone). 3G systems must offer a peak rate of at least 200  kilobits per second, kbit/s (NOTE: most 3G systems actually go much faster than this). 4G systems will have a peak rate of 100 Megabits per second, Mbit/s. A megabit is 1000 times faster than a kilobit.

Lets use this example: The average 4 minute MP3 song is 4MB. It takes about 3 minutes to download this song at 200 kbit/s, the required 3G speed. It takes only 30 seconds to download this song at 1 Mbit/s. But 4G, at its peak speed, should be 100 Mbit/s. So essentially, no time at all. You can see where 4G isn't just fourth generation, its over 4 times as fast, too. (You can find out more about download speeds with this calculator.)

Lie: You (can) have 4G

Now, while all this speed and multimedia capacity sounds fantastic, there is the one lie in the mix. No one has 4G. That's right, all those commercials claiming the best 4G network, don't actually have 4G. What they have is more like 3.9G. In 2008, the International Telecommunication Union's Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) put forth the IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications)-Advanced requirements, which are the international standards for 4G.

While "Pre-4G" systems, such as LTE (a term you may have seen attached to certain phone models which stands for long term evolution) have been on the market as early as 2006, they do not fully comply with IMT-Advanced. Two 4G systems do exist in developmental stages, "LTE-Advanced" and "WirelessMAN-Advanced" but neither are available currently.

So how do companies get away with using the term 4G? On December 6th, 2010, ITU-R announced that evolved versions of 3G could be considered 4G provided:

a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed.

No doubt, 3G has drastically improved in the past few years, however it is not yet the 4G promised to us. While you wait for the golden 4G moment of availability, stay educated about the branding terms that mobile companies use. As you market yourself and your company, these changes can make your online efforts more effective as it becomes easier to browse online, download apps and even read emails with multimedia components.

The next important page we'll deal with in our Top 10 Ways to Ruin Your Website series is the Contact page. Most websites have one. Usually a Contact page consists of some kind of form and also a list of other ways to connect with your business. So how does one screw up something so simple? Easy. Let's discuss the top reasons how.

1. Wrong Information:

Have you ever had this happen? You go to a Contact page, dial the listed number and get that lovely lady's voice on the other end: I'm sorry, the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. (She sounds so pleased with herself, doesn't she?) If you change your number, update your site. There's no easier way to lose a client.

2. No Information:

Better even than wrong information, is none at all. You're excited about the company, you're ready to talk to them but... no contact information. This is particularly annoying when there is a contact form but no one answers your requests.

3. Contact form error:

Check your site. Make sure it works. Click through everything. If your contact form displays an error when they message you (even if the message actually gets through) a possible client can get very frustrated, even if the problem out of your control.

4. Never hooking up your email to your form:

A contact form must be connected to an email address. However, you can set-up a form without linking it to an email. In fact, funny story, we set one up for a client once and he gave us the email he wanted the message forwarded to. The problem was, he didn't actually have that email set up with his host. Lesson here: you do not magically have an email called info@company.com you can send things to. You set that up or pay a web company to do it for you.

5. Never checking the email connected to your contact form:

This isn't really a problem with the Contact page its self, but its worth mentioning. Actually I wrote a post just on contact forms a few months ago that talks more about this. If you have a contact form, check the email it goes to. Or connect it to your outlook, or forward it to an email you actually check, but make sure you get those messages! I know people who missed opportunities because they didn't stay on top of their contact form.

6. Requiring someone's birth certificate before they can use your form:

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little. But you've seen what I mean. The contact form requires certain information (usually denoted with a "*") before you can hit send. Now, I agree, its a good idea to require some information, like an email or phone number so you can get back in touch with people, but don't expect people to give you their life story and social security number just to ask one question.

7. Making the form look too long:

This kinda pairs up with #6. You don't want to scare people away by requiring too much from them. If the form scrolls down two pages I'm probably going to skip it and look for another way to get in touch with you. Most people contact companies through websites to either immediately fill a need or ask basic questions. There should be as few roadblocks as possible to get in touch with you.

8. Hiding your phone number:

Apart from wrong information and no information there is much more sinister: purposefully hidden information. For some reason, certain companies only want feedback through one channel. So they put a phone number up but they hide it at the bottom or it takes two clicks to get to. Or they hide their email, or they hide everything but the sacred contact form. My thoughts are, give people as many ways to contact you as possible, but if you have a preferred method, list it. Or let them know that your response will be via your preferred contact method. AKA, please include you phone number in your email so we can call you back.

9. Excessive Text:

I'm not sure why people feel the need to write an introduction paragraph to their Contact page. But then again, I'm a fan of simplicity. It says (or should say) Contact at the very top of the page, isn't that enough ? But if you feel you must preface your information, than do so minimally. Get to the point as quickly as possible. Make sure your information or form still shows up on the screen without having to scroll down.

10. TMI (Too Much Information):

I mentioned earlier, you give people as many avenues to contact you as possible. But I want to add a disclaimer. Don't overwhelm people. Don't list 7 different phone number with no explanation. Don't list a bunch of names and then their emails addresses with their department. Make sure not to  overload people, sometimes they just want to send one generic email and be done with it. Give your customers that option.

Note: If you do any trouble-shooting or have a customer service department you Contact page is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT! Everything I say here should be in bold for you.

Do you get contacted through your website? If so, which method do people use most often?

Image by AussieGal

The Plot: I had my car worked on this past month. Took it to Midas for a tune-up and they did a wonderful job, I was impressed (no small matter!). I even registered for my appointment online which earned them extra points. I left pleased with my experience and ready to recommend them. But then.... it happened! (dun, dun, duuuuun)

The Villian: A week later I'm sitting in the middle of dinner,  6:30pm on a Thursday night and my cell phone rings. I'm expecting a call from a client so I excuse myself and answer. The man on the other line works for Midas and wants to know if I will take a survey.

The Dilemma: I wanted to give Midas a nice review but my family was waiting for me and this didn't seem like a good enough reason to be rude. So I politely asked, "Is there some way you can email me a survey? I'd love to give you feedback but I'm in the middle of dinner."

"It will only take 5 minutes!" he promises.

Grudgingly I agree and spend ten minutes on the phone.

The Conclusion: My immediate reaction was one of resentment. How dare they call my personal number in the middle of the evening! And why bother me on the phone when they have a perfectly good email address which I'm more likely to respond to? I made my appointment online so obviously I'm open to interacting with them that way. It seemed like case in point to me.

The Other Side of the Coin: After stewing on this for about a week I decided I could see their point of view. Its easy to ignore an email. Its much harder to ignore someone on the phone. And it has a "personal" (if you can call it that) touch.

The Other, Other Side of the Coin: However, more and more people don't answer numbers they don't recognize. Quite a bit of resentment still exists towards telemarketers, and even friendly phone calls can get lumped into that category. So maybe they need to offer an incentive so people will take the survey online... it still probably costs less than having someone call and then correlate the data. You only have to write one email and direct everyone to the same survey.

The Conclusion: Over all, I still think email would have been the best way to contact me. And Midas lost an awesome review because it. I can see their side, but I think more people lean towards email nowadays or even text messages!

The Question: What do you think? If your business uses surveys how do you distribute them?