I didn’t do what I promised my wife I’d do. Because I screwed up.

She really wanted to see Rocky, because its inspirational story would really make her feel better right now. I really wanted to see Rocky, too. Because the last time I saw it was long before I knew how to write fiction myself, and I couldn’t learn anything from it. In fact, it was so long ago, I don’t even remember how the movie goes.

Yesterday, I sent back to Netflix the 3 DVDs I had out. And then I remembered, I forgot to rearrange my Netflix queue to put Rocky at the top. No problem, I thought, I’ll just rearrange my Netflix queue tonight, and they’ll send out the correct DVDs when they get my returns tomorrow.

Unfortunately, life intervened. I had not been feeling well all day. After dinner, we put the kids to bed. Dead on my feet, I relaxed in a warm tub and then fell promptly to sleep. Next thing I knew, Netflix had already received my returns and were sending out the next DVDs from my queue… which did not include the one my wife really wanted to see.

I still thought Netflix might be able to bail me out, however. Because some months ago they added rental plans under which you could rent more than 3 DVDs. If you’re willing to shell out the cash, you can rent up to 8 DVDs at a time now from Netflix. Also, when they introduced these plans, their website presented me with an option to upgrade. If I upgraded, they would send me out my additional DVDs immediately and bill me pro-rated for the upgraded plan.

Never, ever, ever give a prospect who’s ready to buy any reason to procrastinate. Because he’ll take it.

At that time, I thought this was all très cool. But I wasn’t interested in getting more than 3 DVDs at a time. But now…

I’ve been watching DVDs faster than Netflix can send them to me. Back when they first offered the upgraded plans, the opposite was true. And with my goof, not updating my Netflix queue as I should have, it was the perfect time for me to revisit the question. Was I happy with the 3-DVD plan, or did I want a higher-end plan?

So I went to the Netflix website, thinking I could try a 4-DVD plan and see how that goes. That might get me Rocky this weekend, or at least early next week. Or so I thought. But then I saw this on the plan-upgrade page:

Q: When will my rental program change take effect?
A: All program changes begin with your next month of service…

So, they won’t send me an extra DVD immediately, and they won’t bill me extra for part of the current billing cycle. With this new information, guess what I did. Even though I wanted to try the 4-DVD plan, even though I’ve been feeling an acute need for it… I decided not to upgrade.

Why? Because my next billing cycle begins on the 20’th of the month. That gives me 10 more days to decide whether I really want the upgraded plan.

Here’s the takeaway: Never, ever, ever give a prospect who’s ready to buy any reason to procrastinate. Because he’ll take it. Many websites, even for small businesses, do give prospects a reason to procrastinate, in one way or another.

In Netflix’s case, it was reduced customer service. If I choose to upgrade, I need to wait for my upgrade to take effect. Or rather—from my perspective—I can only really upgrade one day a month. And there’s no good reason for this reduction in customer service. Because most of the transaction is handled by the computer. They don’t spend time or resources to put my upgrade into effect, because as soon as the upgrade goes into effect, their computer determines that I need another DVD and which DVD it ought to be. That DVD is then distributed through Netflix’s normal channels.

Even downgrades should be handled the same way. If I were on a 4-DVD plan and I wanted to downgrade to a 3-DVD plan, the downgrade should go into effect as soon as I send back at least 1 DVD. Simple. Again, the computer handles all the paperwork, and receiving the DVDs happens according to standard procedure.

But wouldn’t that mean I could upgrade and downgrade multiple times per month? Yes, it would. But we can’t have customers upgrading and downgrading willy-nilly, can we? Sure we can. Why not? It’s not like we need to pay someone to shuffle around the paperwork for all these hypothetical upgrades and downgrades. It’s all handled by the computer.

But the fact is that customers aren’t going to be upgrading and downgrading all the time. But they will notice that they could if they needed to. (The same thing happens with a money-back guarantee, by the way. Most customers won’t take advantage of it, but they feel better because they know they can if they need to.)

“But if a customer downgrades before his month is up, does that mean we have to refund him for the unused part of the plan?” Well… Yes, you need to credit his account. So if I’m on the 4-DVD plan and I downgrade to a 3-DVD plan halfway through my billing cycle, you’d credit me $3. Yes, you’d lose a one-time $3 in revenue. And for that, I’d keep renting from you month after month after month, because your competitors don’t offer this level of service.

In other words, it’s not all about money. It’s about giving your customer value for his dollar. If I could upgrade and downgrade at will, it wouldn’t be like I’m getting something for nothing. Rather, it would be like I could buy whatever I wanted exactly when I wanted it. Since the computer it handling all the paperwork, it should be cheap for Netflix to provide this service. But it would not be “cheap” to customers who wanted this level of service; it would be valuable to them.

Yet even small businesses miss out on cheap opportunities to sell, usually because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” Simply by giving a prospect an opportunity to procrastinate.

One example is “Click Here to Order.” Whether you have a sales mini-site or an on-line catalog, you probably have a button or a link you want people to click on, which will start the ordering process. A prospect, after he clicks, he probably sees a series of forms. The first one probably asks him for his name, shipping address, telephone number, and email address. Then after he fills that out and clicks “OK,” he can select a form of payment and verify his order.

But look at the “Click Here to Order” link. One thing you should split-test is putting the order form right in the sales letter, because it eliminates a reason to procrastinate. That sales copy you’ve so carefully crafted to carry the prospect from on-the-fence to “I gotta have it now“… Clicking on a link takes him right out of that flow. How many prospects say, “I’ll bookmark this and get around later to the long process of actually prying open my wallet”? Except that they never do.

Eliminating this step is essentially what Amazon.com did with their “1-Click” ordering. They took the pain, and therefore the procrastination, out of buying. You see something you want? You’ve already filled out all the forms! There’s no need to “get around to it.”

As Homer Simpson said, “But I want it now.” In U.S. culture, it’s what we want, more, bigger, newer, faster. We usually apply this advice to customer service, but it applies to sales as well. Because what you’re selling is your offer. And the more immediate your sales process, the easier you’ll make it for people to order from you, and the less procrastination there will be.

In what ways do you give your prospects an opportunity to procrastinate? And how can you make your customer’s satisfaction more immediate?

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