Let's move this question away from the virtual world and into the real world.
How do companies lose prospective customers in real life? Why do guests leave a restaurant without ordering? Why do shopping customers who are interested in buying leave your store without buying?
It's not always down to the price war.
It is due to inadequate service, a loss of trust and a language that is not understood. Before a prospective customer turns away from us, he or she has had many small frustrating experiences that have led to the decision not to pursue your offer any further.
Frustrating experience Slow website
Imagine an Internet user searching for something. On the move with a smartphone. Fortunately, Google lists your website at the top. That's right! Now your prospective customer clicks on the link and what happens? Nothing at first, then the page slowly builds up. After 20 seconds you can finally see something. Sounds like a short time? Then you don't know mobile users very well. Most of them are already at the next hit.
One of the reasons for long waiting times is that websites are hosted by cheap consumer hosters. Although you only pay a few euros per month, you share the space on completely overloaded servers. The technology simply does not manage to load your website quickly. The same applies here: "Buy cheap, buy expensive" - because you pay for a few euros of savings per month with the frustration of your visitors.
Just imagine: On your city trip in a metropolis, after an interesting day you want to go out for a meal in a lively restaurant and pub district. You choose the first restaurant at the beginning of the street and the menu on the doorstep is to your taste. Your mouth is watering and you enter the restaurant. It's very full and there are no tables available. Okay, you're hungry, but you wait patiently. After a quarter of an hour, a seat becomes available, but unfortunately there is no sign of the waitress. After another ten minutes, someone turns up, frantically hands you the menu and then runs off again. There are obviously far too few waiters for the large restaurant, everyone is overworked. A nightmare for any hungry visitor. Now you're afraid you'll have to wait forever for your food and prefer to go to the kebab takeaway next door...
Frustrating content
With many websites, you often get the impression that "the main thing is to have lots of text for search engines". Creative copywriters write their hearts out to place the latest "buzzwords", but forget one important thing: after a few seconds, the visitor's head starts to "buzz". All they can read is "blah blah blah and blah".
Most self-presentations are not particularly helpful either. Of course you want to know who you are dealing with. But it is often exaggerated. Nobody is interested in your life story or that of your employees and certainly not in any certificates that nobody knows.
If you are still willing to read what the website has to offer, you are often overwhelmed by technical terms. What is supposed to convey competence often becomes a boomerang, because the implicit statement here is: "I have power over you thanks to my specialist knowledge!" - Is that what you want to convey to your visitors?
Imagine this: You go to the technology store of your choice and want to buy a television. However, the nice saleswoman doesn't take you to the TV department, but first to a room where you are shown three different presentation films that clearly show why this discounter is the very best in the world. Then she shows you her school-leaving certificate, the school-leaving certificates of all her colleagues, all the adult education certificates and a slide show of all the training courses with cheerful group pictures and points out once again very clearly that everyone here is totally cheerful, can do everything and can do it immediately.
Once you have got through this, you will be taken to the TV department. There you are then overwhelmed with technical terms such as DVB-T2 HD, DVB-C, DVB-S2, Smart-Ready, Ultra High Density - UHD and DLNA standard. The sales assistant doesn't ask you any questions, but you have to start making up your mind now, the store is about to close ...
Frustrating program error
Most websites today are based on so-called content management systems (CMS). This is the software that ensures how your website is structured and how texts, images, PDFs, etc. can be conveniently planted on the website. This software and everything in its environment is constantly being developed and improved by the manufacturers.
As the owner, you therefore have a duty to constantly update the website and the environment. Otherwise errors will inevitably occur at some point. Small errors manifest themselves, for example, in the fact that the design of your website is no longer displayed as it was at the beginning, there are display errors. In the case of major software errors, the entire website will fail.
If your website software is not updated regularly, it is a popular target for hackers. WordPress is a particularly popular candidate due to its widespread use. As a result, your website is no longer accessible and, in the worst-case scenario, your visitors may pick up a Trojan or virus on their computer.
As the website owner, you will not only suffer a catastrophic loss of trust, but can even be held liable in case of negligence.
A defective website has considerable negative consequences for your positive external image and the trust you want to build up through this medium.
Incomprehensible websites
Even if your website runs on the latest distributed high-performance servers and the pages appear extremely quickly, the greatest frustration arises when information cannot be found. Have you ever searched for a specific form on a portal and given up in frustration after five minutes? That is the extreme case. But even with small websites, there are always situations where your visit is accidentally sent to the wrong department. It is enough that your visitor has to find out for himself which department he needs to go to. Even if these are only small moments of frustration, they add up and at some point a potential customer has disappeared.
Creating a precise, targeted user guidance is a long process. What are my visitors actually doing on my website? Do we have the right priorities? If you can't answer these questions, you run the risk of losing customers.