Accurate websites and contact details

Setting up this blog I have begun to be involved in business to business prospecting in earnest. Contacting hundreds of potential client companies and offering them the services of Localventure. It's been an interesting process that I'm enjoying immensely and finding a tremendous challenge. Many business owners are really interested and supportive. We're in discussions with a number to join the blog and also (hopefully) provide other services for which we may earn consultancy fees. However, one of the things that has struck me is how often when prospecting I discover that the website address for a business (say that is listed on another business directory) is no longer working. I'm assuming this means one of several things - the business has unfortunately gone under, the nature of the business has altered and the site no longer fits or that the site has temporarily gone down or they've changed hosting provider. If it's the first reason then clearly it's a sad situation and Localventure is really no more help to them. However, if the site has 'gone' for any other reason then I'd suggest it's commercially not a great situation to be in.

In addition, even those businesses with working websites often have contact details which are difficult to locate and in some cases only offer one or two contact methods.

So here's my thoughts on how I'd advise business to cope with some of these issues - some of it is fairly common sense stuff which is why I'm surprised more businesses don't do it :

1) Check you website every day to make sure it's up and running - I had a problem with my own business site on Friday, it was simple to resolve (just some issues with certain browsers not immediately updating amended content) but if I hadn't checked the site a couple of times in the morning and spotted the errors then the changes I'd made to the delivery tab wouldn't have been implemented.
2) Do a weekly in-depth or test purchase check to make sure the 'under the hood' stuff is working properly. I think it's worth doing this even if you sell things regularly and the client experience is working ok - it's always worth going back and re-living the customer journey to make sure it's as you expect - having created my own e-commerce site from scratch in close partnership with my designer I (like to think) I have a good grasp of the mechanics of the site.
3) If you make any changes to the site - name, products sold, closing down for upgrades - anything that makes the site disappear or look different always leave a holding page with full reasons and contact details up in it's place. Even if your business changes or interrupts you might get calls or contacts that could help future networking. Any client contact should always be viewed as positive
4) I've always adopted a 'belt and braces' approach with regards to client contact - so on my site I have a contact us/info request form; e-mail address, landline telephone number plus I always include all this info in my e-mail signature as well. I even now add my gmail video account if people want a video call ! As a consumer I personally tend to ask for information and support in different ways depending upon what I need - sometimes I phone, sometimes e-mail and sometimes pop round - I think it's therefore best to cover the bases where possible.
5) When you do make changes or want people to know what's happening in the business I'd suggest a couple of extra items to try as well - e-mail shots are a quick way to get info out to your current client base and if you do blog or tweet keeping people updated is both fast and easy. Setting up this kind of capability is incidentally something that LV can help with if you're interested.

I'm not suggesting for one second that massive revamps of websites are needed - in most cases it's pretty easy to add in little bits of extra copy for free or at low cost.