STRATEGY FOR RETAINING OLD CUSTOMERS

A] The importance of delivery for retention

1) Get the last mile right

Delivery can be a pain for online retailers. They may sell great products, provide an excellent online experience, yet the final step in the process is in the hands of third parties who don't necessarily share the company's values. 

Here, a reliable courier and close monitoring of service levels helps, but you can also keep customers informed on the progress of their delivery, and make the process as convenient as possible. 

Kiddicare's SMS service is an excellent example of this. Customers can be kept informed of despatch and delivery by text, and also have the option to rearrange delivery if they want to. 

2) Get the packaging right

Not all retailers have complete control over the delivery process, but they can ensure that the packaging has that 'wow factor', as in this example from Burberry: 

You could also add little extras and surprises, a tactic used by Glasses Direct. According to its founder Jamie Murray Wells: 

We have always relied upon word of mouth recommendations from customers, so we add little gifts to orders, provide a little extra service, and try to surprise and delight our customers. This is the best form of marketing for us. 

3) Offer fast delivery options

Retailers should never underestimate the 'want it now' mentality. If customers know that they will receive goods quickly when they order, they'll keep coming back. 

4) Set and beat customer expectations

There's something to be said for underpromising and over-delivering. For example, John Lewis will state that a delivery will take three or four working days but, in my experience, they frequently arrive sooner then that. 

B] Registration and repeat purchases

1) Personalisation

Learn about your customers and present relevant products to them based on their preferences and buying history. 

2) Persuade customers to register

Registration can be a pain, but if retailers can persuade customers to register without making it a barrier to purchase, then there are huge benefits in terms of retention. 

They can track orders, receive special offers and, most importantly, repeat purchases are easier if delivery and payment details are saved. 

3) Easy repeat purchases

Amazon’s one-click payments are a big part of its success online, as it makes purchases incredibly simple so encourages shoppers to keep coming back. In combination with next day delivery via Prime, it makes it almost too easy to buy from the site. 

It works by saving the customers card details and delivery address so they only have to enter a username and password.

It's also especially valuable on mobile as consumers don’t want to waste time trying to enter credit card details on a smart phone.

  4) Easy password/account retrieval

Most web users have so many passwords that remembering them all is almost impossible. This means that, if they haven't purchased from a site for a while, then a forgotten password can be a real barrier. 

For example, I was unable to create an account on HMV as I had previously set one up with my email address. This meant a long reset procedure which could have been avoided with a simple security question. 

Or, as Amazon does, allowing users to create a new account with that email address can skip this issue: 

5) Retargeting via display ads

Retargeting can be a pain for web users, but when used effectively, it is a valuable tactic for retaining customers.  

A well timed and well executed offer can be enough to tempt customers back to a website to purchase items they were looking at. 

C] Customer services

1) Social media customer service

Offering great customer service via social media can help customers to avoid the pain of the call centre queue, and offer a more personal touch.

For example, Blackberry offers the personal touch by including pictures of the people ‘manning’ the profile:

2) Improve email customer service

According to recent stats, email is the preferred customer service channel for 44% of consumers. However, email customer service is often poor, or non-existent. 

3) Answer customer calls

Call centres are massive sources of pain for customers. Indeed, 48% of consumers say it's the most frustrating customer service channel.

This can be due to poor service offered by agents (and I've experienced plenty of that) but also because it takes so long to get your call answered at times. 

Brands like first direct, which often answers calls instantly, and normally within a minute, have a clear advantage over competitors just because they avoid pissing customers off by making them wait. 

4) Offer free and easy returns

Offering free and convenient returns is a great way to persuade first-time customers to buy, but is also a great retention tactic. 

If customers know they can return items easily if they change their minds, they are more likely to come back again. On the flipside, charging for returns 

According to Craig Adkins of Zappos:

Our best customers have the highest returns rates,but they are also the ones that spend the most money with us and are our most profitable customers. Zappos' modus operandi is not to give its purchasers the cheapest footwear on the block, but to give them the best service: hence, a 365-day returns policy, and free two-way shipping.

On the flipside, charging for returns, though retailers have costs to cover, can deter customers from returning to a website. The cost of the return needs to be weighed against the risk of losing repeat business.

D] Email marketing

1) Offer accessories for previous purchase

This is a useful tactic for post-purchase emails. If customers have bought an iPad, why not offer them relevant accessories, covers etc? 

2) Post-purchase emails

If a customer has just made their first purchase, this is a good time to follow up with a welcome email and some up and cross sell suggestions. 

3) Birthday / event emails

Emails triggered by specific events, such as a customer's birthday, abandoned checkouts etc can be a very effective retention tactic. Check out these stats from Email Marketing Reports. 

4) Reminder emails

If a customer hasn't made a purchase for a while, then a gentle nudge may be enough to tempt them back. It also helps to sweeten the email with a discount. 

E] Rewards

1) Reward your most valuable customers

At last year's JUMP, NET-A-PORTER head of marketing Neil Bridgeman talked about the attention it gives to its most valuable customers, it's EIPS (extremely important people). 

These EIPs “represent an inordinate amount of revenue”, and as such they’re very well taken care of. Here’s how:

Orders from EIPs are picked, packed and despatched first.  They are assigned personal shoppers and invited into the London office for wardrobe

planning.  They get first choice of new products (some of which are very limited).  They receive personalised look books and see exclusive previews and presentations. 

EIPs have personal shoppers.  EIPs have products bought specifically for them by the buying team.

2) Offer rewards for loyalty

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a text from O2 recently, offering me a free gift for being a customer for four years. It was a £15 voucher (no strings attached) for the retailers mentioned. 

Not a massive amount, but a nice gesture nevertheless. 

3) Refer a friend for gift vouchers / money off 

This is a common tactic for financial sites. For example, first direct will credit your account with £100 for every friend you refer. 

Naked Wines uses a similar tactic, offering a £40 voucher for friends, and crediting customers' accounts for their efforts. 

Offer exclusive deals for social followers

Luxury flash-sale site Gilt Groupe has been offering exclusive sales to Facebook fans. This gives people a real reason to keep coming back, and to use the brand's Facebook store. 

STRATEGY FOR GETTING NEW CUSTOMERS

Start with a web promotion plan and an effective web design and development strategy. Get ranked at the top in major search engines, and practice good Search Optimization Techniques. Learn to use Email Marketing Effectively. Dominate your marketing niche with affiliate, reseller, and associate programs. Request an analysis from an Internet marketing coach or Internet marketing consultant. Build a responsive opt-in email list. Publish articles or get listed in news stories. Write and publish online press releases. Facilitate and run contests and giveaways via your web site. Blog and interact with your visitors.

Directory AdvertisingOne of the distinguishing characteristics of directory advertising is that the publication usually contains emergency and public service information relative to the community it is distributed in. In most cases, the local phone company takes the responsibility of producing and distributing the directories on an annual basis. The company's sales representatives solicit local and regional businesses to take out or renew display ads and basic listings.

Virtual malls

Internet site that mimics a department store or shopping center, enabling customers to access a variety of retailers using a shared site or site links; also called on-line mall. Whereas physical shopping malls reduce the travel and parking time required to visit different stores, virtual malls may reduce the time needed to search for various goods and establish multiple payment accounts. In some cases, there is a shared shopping cart, a single payment transaction, and centralized customer service provided by the mall host. The concept of a virtual mall is in transition, with many variations being tested, from fully integrated sites as already described to completely independent sites only offering links to other sites. Many retailers prefer independent sites in order to control their brand image and the quality of the customer relationship. See also on-line catalog.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

Features of Seo

1. SEO Audit Score – there is no room for beginner-level software; you need an SEO Audit score which measures the SEO health of a page AND the entire SEO program. This is critical path; you must ensure your platform and your vendor provide a legitimate and authentic SEO Audit Score.

2. International Capability – support for International search engines including non-US market leaders such as Baidu, Rambler, Yandex, AUM and Naver are critical path for a successful SEO program at an enterprise level.

3. Scalability – you must have transparency into the full SEO lifecycle such as planning, execution and tracking. This is where a lot of platforms fall short; centralized planning, execution and tracking are critical path.

4. Client Referrals – talk to several of the vendor’s clients. UI demos may in fact appear to work well; however, they can also break down quickly in real-life practice. UI and custom dashboard capabilities must have a robust configuration screen. Avoid platforms with multiple-step process for setting up a dashboard. Look for a platform dashboard which can be far easier configured with drag and drop capabilities.

5. Beyond Reporting – a reporting solution with some ability to audit pages and make recommendations is not adequate. Having several reports running ad-hoc such as page audits, rank checking, competitive comparisons and link analysis is a must. Additionally, focusing on weekly reporting will not suffice.

6. Execution of SEO – the ability to help you execute on your SEO strategy includes Mobile, Local and Social. This is probably the single, most important feature you need. You must have a platform to help you execute on the complete SEO life cycle. Mobile, Local and Social have become huge working parts of the SEO life cycle.

7. Vision and Opportunity Forecasting – be aligned with the future of the industry. Opportunity forecasting includes the feasibility of how easy or difficult will it be to actually go after your top terms. Tip: generalizing CTR % overstates opportunity, presenting a good concept, but impractical in reality.

8. Keyword Discovery with landing page mapping – looking at competitive terms without the ability to monitor and track social input or to help you map keywords to the best targeted landing page will leave you hanging dry. The result is a very manual and time-consuming process. You must have keyword discovery with landing page mapping capabilities and be able to include social influence.

9. Tracking Changes – it is extremely important to track and identify known (and unknown) page changes that were made which may negatively impact your SEO program. Tracking changes is another sweet-spot that will save you enormous amounts of time and allow you to catch things you would otherwise miss.

10. Page Level Competitive Analysis – the ability to see at the page level, a side-by-side comparison of where your competitive pages are better optimized vs. your targeted landing page for a given keyword is super important and extremely valuable

Seo Tools & technique

1. Title Tag

Near the very top of a web site’s source code you’ll find various meta tags — the standard ones being the Title, Description and Keyword tags. The title tag is technically not a meta tag, though it is commonly associated with them. The title tag plays such a large role in the indexing of your web site, that it is considered the most important of the three.

A page title is the first thing a search engine will look at when determining just what the particular page is about. It is also the first thing potential visitors will see when looking at your search engine listing.

It’s important to include a keyword or two in the title tag — but don’t go overboard – you don’t want to do what’s known as “keyword stuffing” which does nothing but make your web site look like spam. Most people will include either the company name, or title of the particular page here, as well.

2. Meta Tags

There are two primary meta tags in terms of SEO — the description and the keyword tag. It’s debatable whether the search engines use the description tag as far as ranking your results. However it is one of the more important tags because it is listed in your search result — it is what users read when your link comes up and what makes them decide whether or not to click on your link.

Be sure to include a few relevant keywords in this tag, but don’t stuff it with keywords either. The description tag should read like a sentence — not a keyword list.

Due to “keyword stuffing” many search engines now completely disregard the keyword tag. It is no longer nearly as important as it was years ago, however it doesn’t hurt to include them in your source code.

When creating your keyword list, you’ll want to think of the specific terms people will type in when searching for a site like yours. Just don’t go overboard — too many duplicates are not a good thing (as in “web designer” “web designers” “custom web designer” “html web designer” “your state here web designer” – you get the idea). Those are all basically the same, so pick one or two variations at the most and move onto the next keyword.

3. Proper Use of Heading Tags

This is a very important element to consider when writing out your site copy. Use of heading tags helps users, web browsers and search engines alike know where the major key points of your copy are.

Your main page title should use the <h1> tag — this shows what your page is about. Use of additional tags, such as <h2> and <h3> are equally important by helping to break down your copy. For one, you’ll see a visual break in the text. But as far as the search engines are concerned, it will automatically know what your topics are on a page. The various heading tags give a priority to the content and help index your site properly.

4. Alt Attributes on Images

Putting alt attributes on your images actually serves two purposes. In terms of SEO, putting a brief yet descriptive alt attribute along with your image, places additional relevant text to your source code that the search engines can see when indexing your site. The more relevant text on your page the better chance you have of achieving higher search engine rankings.

In addition, including image alt attributes help the visually impaired who access web sites using a screen reader. They can’t see the image, but with a descriptive alt attribute, they will be able to know what your image is.

5. Title Attributes on Links

Including title attributes on links is another important step that any good web site will have. That’s the little “tool tip” that pops up when you place your mouse over a link. These are especially important for image links, but equally useful for text links.

As a note, you should use descriptive text for your links. “Click here” doesn’t really tell a person – or more importantly, the search engines — what the link is. At the very least put a title tag that will

explain that “Click Here” really means “Web Design Portfolio” for example. Better yet – make the main link text something like “View my web design portfolio” — this will give some value to the link showing that the resulting page is relevant to searches for portfolio’s.

6. XML Sitemap

My last post referenced the sitemaps used by web visitors to help them navigate through your site themselves. However, there’s another version — XML sitemaps — that are used by the search engines in order to index through your site, as well.

This list of ALL pages / posts / etc. of your site also includes information such as the date the page was last modified, as well as a priority number of what you feel the most important pages of your sites are. All elements that help the search engines properly find and link to all content of your site.

7. Relevant Content

Having content relevant to your main page or site topic is perhaps the most important SEO aspect of a page. You can put all the keywords you want in the meta tags and alt image tags, etc — but if the actual readable text on the page is not relevant to the target keywords, it ends up basically being a futile attempt.

While it is important to include as many keywords in your page copy as possible, it is equally as important for it to read well and make sense. I’m sure we’ve all seen keyword stuffed pages written by SEO companies that honestly don’t make much sense from the reader’s point of view.

When creating your site copy, just write naturally, explaining whatever information you’re discussing. The key is to make it relevant, and to have it make sense to the reader. Even if you trick the search engines into thinking your page is great — when a potential customer arrives at the site and can’t make heads or tails of your information and it just feels spammy to them — you can bet they’ll be clicking on the next web site within a matter of seconds.

8. Link Building

We’ve probably all heard of Google Page Rank — it seems to be every web site owner’s dream to have as high a page rank as possible. While the algorithm for determining page rank encompasses many elements, and is constantly changing, one item is the number of links pointing to your web site.

Now, you’ll want to steer clear of link farms and other spammy attempts at getting links to your site. However there are many reputable and niche directory sites that you can use to submit your web site, or specific blog articles to.

With genuine content — especially if you have a blog — you’ll be able to generate links with other web sites and blogs, as well. It’s somewhat of a give and take, in that if you link out to other sites, you’ll find sites linking back to you  — and hopefully see your page rank going up, as well!

9. Social Media

Although technically not SEO, Social Media is such a growing factor in getting your web site noticed, that it’s an important element to include in your plan.

Social media ranges from social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn — to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon and many more. There is a lot of relationship building involved, but as you build your own networks and build quality content on your web site or blog, you’ll see traffic to your web site increasing, as well.

As with any relationship, it is a give and take. Don’t just expect to join a site like Twitter for the pure sake of pushing your content. That just won’t fly — your true intentions will stick out like a sore thumb and do nothing but turn people off.

Even if you are on the site purely for networking reasons, the key is to make friends. Help out members of your network if they ask for a “retweet” or Digg, give helpful advice if asked, etc. You’ll see the same in return.

If you write a great post and have built meaningful relationships with peers in your  niche, you’ll often find that friends will submit your posts and give you votes on the social bookmarking sites. The more votes you receive, the more likely your post is to be noticed by others and shared around, often resulting in additional link backs from other blogs, etc.

11. A Few SEO Don’ts — Flash and Splash

Along with any list of Do’s come the Don’ts. As far as SEO is concerned, two of these items are splash pages (often consisting of a flash animation) and all flash web sites.

Yes, flash is pretty! Full flash web sites can actually be amazing to look at — their own bit of interactive artwork. But unfortunately the search engines don’t get along well with Flash. Although there is talk of possible advancement in this area, for the most part the search engines cannot read Flash.

CPM

Cost per mille (CPM), also called cost ‰ and cost per thousand (CPT) (in Latin mille means thousand), is a commonly used measurement in advertising. Radio, television, newspaper, magazine, out-of-home advertising, and online advertising can be purchased on the basis of showing the ad to one thousand viewers. It is used in marketing as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign or an ad message in a given medium.

The “cost per thousand advertising impressions” metric (CPM) is calculated by dividing the cost of an advertising placement by the number of impressions (expressed in thousands) that it generates. CPM is useful in comparing the relative efficiency of different advertising opportunities or media and in evaluating the costs of overall campaigns.

The purpose of the CPM metric is to compare costs of advertising campaigns within and across different media. A typical advertising campaign might try to reach potential consumers in multiple locations and through various media. The cost per thousand impressions (CPM) metric enables marketers to make cost comparisons between these media, both at the planning stage and during reviews of past campaigns.

Marketers calculate CPM by dividing advertising campaign costs by the number of impressions (or opportunities-to-see) that are delivered by each part of the campaign. Thus, CPM is the cost of a media campaign, relative to its success in generating impressions to see. As the impression counts are generally sizeable, marketers customarily work with the CPM impressions. Dividing by 1,000 is an industry standard.

To calculate CPM, marketers first state the results of a media campaign (gross impressions). Second, they divide that result into the relevant media cost:

Advertising Cost ($) / Impressions Generated

For example:

1. Total cost for running the ad is $15,000.2. The total estimated audience is 2,400,000 people.

3. ($15,000/2,400,000) = $0.006254. CPM is calculated as: $0.00625 x 1000 (meaning per thousand views) = $6.25

http://readwrite.com/2013/04/16/10-developer-tips-to-build-a-responsive-website-infographic#awesm=~ow3ezfwM6wXh2V

the link mentioned is the answer for the question (designing parameters of website)

Web Portal Standard Features

General Navigation

The features discussed in this section are available throughout the Web portal.  After login, you can navigate through the Web portal using the left navigation bar or the text hyperlinks found at the top and bottom of the Web pages.

An example of the left navigation pane for a provider is provided below:

 

Please note that the 'Bill Entry' hyperlink is only available to Field Nurses (provider type 41) and Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors (provider types 55-56) enrolled in the FECA program.  

Top navigation bar:

Bottom navigation bar:

Common Object Features

A variety of objects are used to support the display and entry of information on the Web portal pages. An object is a single controllable entity that has definable characteristics. These objects have similar functionality wherever they appear.  Objects include drop down list boxes, radio buttons, check boxes, etc. 

     

Name Definition and Usage

Example

Hyperlink A link, or hypertext,  is a selectable connection from one word, picture, or information object to another.

Drop Down List Box

A drop-down list box is a field with a down arrow at the far right edge.  Clicking the arrow presents a list of items. To make a selection, click the down arrow. From the list, single-click on the item you wish to select. When a value is selected, the drop-down list box automatically closes.  You can also close a drop-down list box

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some drop-down list boxes have scroll bars to access additional information. 

without selecting an item by clicking outside the drop-down list box.

Text Box A text box is a rectangular box in which you enter information. Text boxes allow entry of data in any format - alpha, numeric, special characters, etc.  A text box is also referred to as a free-form text field. 

 

Radio Button

Radio buttons are used to select one option.  A radio button is a small circle that contains a dot when the option is selected, and is blank when the option is not selected.  To change from not selected to selected, or from selected to not selected, simply click inside the small circle.

 

 

 

Refer to the Tabbing section of this chapter for browser specific behavior.

Check Box

A check box is a square box that is selected or cleared to turn on or off

 

an option.  When the checkbox contains a checkmark, it indicates a “true” or “yes” condition for the associated label name.  When the checkbox is blank, it indicates a “false”, “no”, or “off” condition for the associated label name. Multiple check boxes can be selected. 

 

 

Refer to the Tabbing section of this chapter for browser specific behavior.

Command Buttons

Command Buttons are rectangular buttons that are clicked to initiate the action indicated on the label of the button.

The following buttons are frequently used throughout the Web portal.

 

 The Cancel button allows you to abort an action without saving any data.

 

 The Continue button allows you to advance to the next page or step in a process.   

 

 The Submit button allows you to post entered data.

 

 The Update button allows you to complete the edit of previously saved data on the page.

Tabs Tabs are labeled groups of options used for similar functions. 

 

Click a tab to display the page. 

 

Response Window

When a Response Window displays, it is the active window and no other window in the Web portal is accessible until you respond to it.

 

A response window is also referred to as a Pop-up.  

 

 

For example, if you enter an incorrect date, the response window shown above displays. Pop-up windows serve a messaging or warning purpose, with information about a particular function. Generally, to close a response window, click the Yes or OK, No or Cancel button.

 

Adobe® To facilitate ease-of-use, document files are in convenient Adobe® Portable

Document Format® (PDF) format.   Download this free software by clicking any of the Adobe image icons on the Web

 

 

A confirmation message prompts you to leave the Web portal and download the software to your PC.

portal. 

 

Browser Requirements

To be compatible with the Web portal’s security features, we require that you use one of the browsers listed below.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 with 128-bit encryption

Netscape Navigator 7.0 with 128-bit encryption

 

Please note that both Microsoft and Netscape currently only support their most current versions of browsers, which are IE 6 and NS 7.01.  To determine which browser version you are using, click ‘Help,’ then ‘About’ on your browser’s file menu. 

 

Internet Explorer

To upgrade your Microsoft Internet Explorer browser go to the following address:

 http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.htm.

Netscape Navigator

To upgrade your Netscape Navigator browser go to the following address:

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp

Determining and Upgrading Your Browser Encryption Strength

The Web portal encrypts confidential information.  Encryption is a means of scrambling data for transmission or storage such that the data is unintelligible without unscrambling it with a specific key.  To determine your browser’s encryption strength, follow the instructions below.

Internet Explorer Users

1.      From the menu bar choose ‘Help.’

2.      Then choose ‘About Internet Explorer.’

3.       Look for the ‘Cipher Strength’ information, as shown below:

4. If your Cypher Strength is 128-bit, you are able to access this site's secure pages. However, if your Cypher Strength is less than 128-bit, download and install Microsoft's Internet Explorer encryption strength upgrade from the following address: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/128bit/default.asp.

Netscape Navigator Users

1.      From the menu bar choose ‘Help.’

2.      Then choose ‘About Netscape.’

3.       Look for the ‘security’ information, as shown below.

 

With security strength of 128-bit, you should be able to access secure pages.

Enabling Scripting

In addition to making sure browser version and encryption strength are correct, you must ensure that JavaScript is enabled on your browser.  If scripting is disabled on your browser, an alert message appears on the web page, as seen below.

 

 

If your browser is not set up to allow scripting and you would like to enable this capability, you may click on the link to access directions to turn scripting on in your browser.

Tabbing

You can move from field to field on a page either by single-clicking with your mouse inside a field to position your cursor there or by pressing the Tab key.  Pressing the Tab key moves you in a pre-determined sequence, called the tabbing sequence or order.  This sequence is normally left to right, top to bottom, but may vary depending on the business needs of the window and the browser.  Pressing the Shift key and the Tab key simultaneously initiates backward tabbing in the tabbing sequence. 

Tabbing to checkboxes, radio buttons, and the actual tab at the top of a tab page window causes the cursor to disappear or to lose focus.  The cursor is actually there in the field and you can enter data, although the field does not have focus.  This action can be misleading at times, so be careful when tabbing through checkboxes, radio buttons, and the tabs at the top of the tab page windows. 

Browser Behaviors - Accessibility Differences of Checkboxes and Radio Buttons through Tabbing

Check Boxes

When you tab to a checkbox on Internet Explorer, a small dotted rectangle appears around the box itself.  This is an indication of focus.  Pressing the Space Bar toggles the setting, from unchecked to checked or from checked to unchecked.

On some versions of Netscape, there might be a dotted rectangle as a visual indication of focus, but it appears around the associated text, which might be empty, in which case there would be just a fairly small empty rectangle on the right of the checkbox.  The selection of a checkbox can be toggled using the Space Bar or Enter key.

Radio Buttons

On Internet Explorer, when a radio button group is reached via tabbing, the initially selected button is focused on, indicated by the dotted rectangle. You can use Arrow keys to move between the buttons inside the group; both "down" and "right" arrow move forward inside the group, and both "up" and "left" arrow move backward.  Upon moving to a button, that button gets checked (and the button in the group that was checked gets unchecked).

On Netscape, when a set of radio buttons is reached via tabbing, the first button receives focus.  Move forward inside the group by tabbing. Moving to a button that way does not change the setting.  Use the Space Bar or Enter key to check a button.

 

Error Messaging

The Web portal edits all data that is entered into the system.  Data that fails system edits causes an error message to be generated.  Error messages appear in a response window with an icon indicating the severity of the error, and an OK button to click to return to the window to correct the error.

Edits are processed in the following fashion:

As data is initially entered, invalid formats for dates, dollar amounts, and other fields generate an error message immediately upon leaving the field.

When saving, exiting, or moving to another page, the following groups of edits are applied in the sequence listed:

Required fields – a consolidated error message is presented to identify all required fields missing data.  Following error corrections are data validation edits.  See example below:

Data validation edits are performed within each separate data window.  An example of these edits is validating that the ‘End Date is not prior to the ‘Begin Date.’   A separate consolidated error message list is presented for each data window.  All errors for one data window must be corrected before the system proceeds to the next data window.

When saving or exiting (not changing tabs) a third set of edits is performed.  These are cross-field validation edits.  These edits compare data entered on one window against data entered on a separate window.  The resulting error messages may or may not be consolidated.

 

Usage/Data Entry Conventions

Entering Dates

All dates are entered in the numeric form MM/DD/CCYY, explained below. 

MM is the two-digit month (January is 01, February is 02, and so on).  Leading zeros do have to be entered as part of the format.

DD is the day within the month (Enter the first through the ninth days of the month as 01, 02, etc.)  Leading zeros do have to be entered as part of the format.

CCYY indicates the year (1998 is in CCYY format).    

 

Entering Social Security Number

Social Security Number must be entered as nine numeric digits.  It must be entered with no separators such as dashes.  Once the SSN is entered and saved, the system automatically displays the field contents in an edited format, i.e., with dashes.

For example, a Provider’s Social Security Number must be entered as “123456789”, but it will be displayed back as “123-45-6789”.

 

Entering Telephone Numbers

Telephone numbers must be entered as ten numeric digits.  They must be entered with no separators such as dashes or parenthesis.  Once the telephone number is entered and saved, the Web portal automatically displays the field contents in an edited format, i.e., with dashes.   For example, a Provider’s telephone number must be entered as “1234567890”, but it will be displayed back as “(123) 456-7890.”

 

Entering Dollar Amounts

When entering a dollar amount, do not enter a dollar sign or a comma. Use dollars decimal cents format when cents are involved. For example, to indicate seventy-five dollars and eighty-three cents, enter 75.83 into the field. If you were to enter simply 7583, the system would interpret this as $7,583.00.

For whole dollar amounts, the entry of the decimal and two zeros to the right of the decimal are optional.  For example, seventy-five dollars can be entered as 75 or 75.00.