Justifying an investment in the customer experience and practical tips for achieving success

OTOi, User Experience Team | One To One Interactive
April 30, 2002

"Customer Experience" is a term that's used often in our industry, but each of us may define it differently. For us, the customer experience is every point of contact that someone has with your company. The online customer experience is every point of contact that someone has with your online marketing efforts and web site. The customer experience of your web site translates into content, features and functionality, the organization of information, workflow, and interface design.

Why should we invest in the customer experience?

This may seem like an obvious question, but those of us who are, in any way, responsible for the successful launch of a site must justify this investment to those who may not see the value so clearly. There are two main advantages of investing in the user experience:

• Improving the performance of your site for the end user can increase returns from your marketing dollars
• Rigorous design methodologies lead to pay back in the development cycle and improved internal operations

Improving the performance of your site for the end user can increase returns from your marketing dollars

First of all, driving people to your site is critical, but the experience doesn't end there. You must follow through with a satisfying web site experience to win them over and keep them coming back. Providing a site that is easy to use and has useful content and functionality will encourage customers to participate. Participation can increase conversion, which is a metric that enables you to measure your return on investment.

Research indicates that $1 spent on advertising produced $5 in total revenue, while $1 spent on customer experience improvements yielded more than $50. Creative Good, "Holiday '99 E-commerce", September 1999

This same opportunity exists on your web site. When customers participate in your site, there is opportunity for a two-way dialog to happen. Whenever there is a dialog between two parties, there is an opportunity to build and maintain a relationship. When customers have a relationship with you, they are likely to be more loyal. Customers who are loyal are usually repeat customers, which leads directly to increased revenue.

Rigorous design methodologies lead to pay back in the development cycle, and improved internal operations

Simply stated, it's far less expensive to prevent a problem from occurring in the first place than to fix it later. By making the usefulness of your site a priority, you not only satisfy the customer, you streamline the operation by improving product design and development. Rigorous design methodologies produce both tools for design that provide a clear picture of a great product before you commit to building it as well as blueprints that will guide the development process.

Ideally, after your site is launched, it will continue to change and evolve on a frequent basis. A well-designed site takes into consideration the maintenance requirements and evolutionary paths far before the launch. By considering the needs of those who are responsible for the build and maintenance of the site, you save costs by reducing development time and lowering training and maintenance expenses. Not only can you save on expenses, you can also succeed in getting a better product to market faster.

The cost of a complete site overhaul is roughly 30 times that of incorporating testing early on. Forrester Research, "Why most web sites fail", May 2000

Practical tips for creating a successful customer experience

Okay, I get it. Pleasing the customer is the right thing to do, but how do we do it successfully?

Through our experience, we've uncovered three basic ways to ensure the creation of a successful customer experience:

• Involve design professionals early
• Go to the real users, and talk to them in context
• Translate your findings into tools for design

Involve design professionals early and often

Smart design professionals are problem solvers, not beauty queens. A beautiful design isn't great if it ignores the business objectives, users needs, and technical constraints. Before sketching and brainstorming begin, a clear understanding of these three elements among the design team is critical to uncovering solutions that accommodate all of them.

Ensure continuity throughout the process from business strategy to design implementation. When design professionals are brought in after the fact, they are not immersed in the decisions that were made up to that point. Because of this "break" in the process, there is a chance that the execution will not align fully with the intended strategy. Involve the design professionals in research, analysis and creation of strategies. They bring a fresh perspective, ask hard questions, advocate for the user, and constantly keep the end goal in mind. Their immersion in the up front learning will ensure a final solution that delivers on your business strategy.

Go to the real users, and talk to them in context

The customer experience cannot be understood without going to real people. Observing and talking to them in their context is the only way to truly understand who your customers are, how they do things, what they think, and why they use the sites, products, and services they use.

"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you have never seen a wrench or a screwdriver you will have a hard time seeing what you need..." Alan Cooper

People can't always tell you what they need. This isn't saying that we shouldn't listen to what people say, but that we should also observe what they do to figure out what they need. Recommendations from this type of research are powerful since they are grounded in an understanding of your customer's day-to-day lives.

Different types of user research give you different results. Quantitative research reaches large numbers of people and produces results that are statistical. This type of data is necessary and valuable when validating ideas, trying to obtain funding, and understanding the market. Qualitative research is done with fewer people, in greater depth, and produces results that are rich in detail about human behavior. The results of this type of research are highly valuable to design professionals because they can be directly translated into actionable design directions.

Translate your findings into tools for design

Tools for design are simple visual explanations of complex business issues, workflow processes, task analyses, user profiles, scenarios, etc. They are the bridge between a business strategy and an actual design execution.

Many times project teams go directly from the business strategy into the design of a marketing campaign or web site. But more often than not, the explanation of the business strategy is too high level for translating directly into design elements like information organization, interaction models, and UI elements. A visual explanation, such as a user scenario or analysis of a workflow process can provide the detailed information necessary to create actionable design directions.

Many teams are made up of Business Analysts, Technical Architects, Information Architects, UI Designers, Marketing Professionals, and different types of Managers. Each person comes to the table with different perspectives, different backgrounds, and different levels of knowledge.

Visual tools for design ensure alignment among all the team members. They give the entire team something tangible to look at and to react to, putting us all on the same page.

For the delivery team, they are tools for generating and evaluating ideas. Tools for design provide real world evidence and justification for making decisions, which aids us in making a case for our recommendations.

For the client or the management team, they are tools for making better decisions more efficiently. They can be used as educational tools for justifying projects to upper management, and obtaining funding.

Tools for design save time because the information is easy to digest quickly. Many times, senior level managers don't have time to read a thick document. The ability to communicate a lot of information quickly is highly valuable.

Tools like this lead directly to a design brief, which translates these opportunities into a focused plan for design action.

Conclusion

Improving the customer experience is a win-win situation: Everyone benefits. So get the most from your marketing dollars by improving the performance of your site for the end user. And, though it may be hard to break away from doing things "the way you always do them", consider a more rigorous design approach. It will streamline the development cycle and lead to more efficient internal operations after launch.

Involve your design professionals early; they have a lot to bring to the table. Go directly to the source; learn from your customers and other end users in context. And lastly, give your team time up front to translate findings into tools for design. The better the tools are, the faster the development process will be, and the more effective your final execution will be.

It just makes sense.

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