Ways in which user experience contributes towards long-term customer satisfaction

The correlation between user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX) is quite evident, and it affects the corporation’s ROI or Return on Investment. The reasoning is that effective UX investments elevate customer satisfaction. And only satisfied customers stay loyal.

What the Amazon founder has to say?

The triumvirate - UX, Customer Satisfaction and ROI - go hand-in-hand for Amazon. Jeff Bezos, the founder, posits that a long-term focus on customer experience is way better than a short-term focus on profit. In this stead, Amazon conducts continual A/B testing on all aspects of its customer-facing user interfaces and regularly updates and redesigns them based on that data.

The Importance of UX

There are several benefits for businesses that leverage the power of UX. Following are some ways that UX can impact the return on investment or ROI:

• Creating a tailored UX for the customers removes the need for redesigns.

• User experience helps increase conversions and customer loyalty.

• Products that offer seamless usability need not address or call out the support team to resolve issues.

• With efficient UX, users need no longer wait for issues to be diagnosed with a plethora of solutions on the market.

• Employees’ satisfaction significantly impacts the financial state of companies.

• UX customer journey maps help enhance customer loyalty and retention sales.

Essential UX Factors that help elevate your CX and ROI

According to research, every USD 1 invested in UX brings about USD 100 in return. Now that’s a whopping 9900 per cent ROI. With that said, we shall proceed to the essential factors.

Research and Analysis
Based on field studies and research, one might want to portray user personas, peculiarities, behaviours and needs to capture valuable insights. Like automotive simulations, analysing potential consumers, too, requires prototypes. And this can get done by creating fictional characters. It is a powerful way to observe and predict the expectations of prospects.

Also, this helps the enterprise perceive their product and service renderings from a user’s perspective. Once information about the user persona is collected, the subsequent step is a customer journey map. This helps minimise the risk of incorrect estimates about behaviours.
Remember, the product or service needs to have a purpose, and only users can help define the extent of its usefulness. Another related factor is usability. This entails incorporating feedback from users to iterate the design accordingly.

Prototypes and Wireframes
Demonstrating the interface elements of the web page or applications requires that the design team create a layout. The two alternatives are low-fidelity wireframes and hi-lo wireframes, also known as rapid prototypes. The type of wireframe gets determined by the design purpose and the need of team members. For instance, low-fidelity wireframes present the design via basic layouts, whereas high-fidelity ones are advanced prototypes. The latter gets saturated with visuals and interactions close to the ultimate version of the product.

In designing the wireframes and prototypes, simplicity merits consideration. Abundant features and functionality can overwhelm users, especially those who desire simple and user-friendly solutions. Also, customer-centric and up-to-date UI/UX shall empower users to make more purchases.

Usability Testing
The purpose is to identify the product’s usability issues before launching on a larger scale. This testing helps make corrections and modifications during the early stages of the product development process. Hence, prototyping is an ideal way for deploying usability tests. The reason is that design teams can fix issues before implementing the final product. The entire process reduces time and cost wastage for development teams.

To take the Amazon example! The enterprise conducts permanent A/B testing to redesign its product tailored to users’ needs. According to Nielsen Norman Group, one needs only five users for usability testing. Here, the third user generates very small amounts of new data. As more users get added, the team learns less as there is considerable repetition. Think of this as the diminishing marginal utility or return of the learning curve.

Converting leads into paying customers
While paid ads, YouTube videos and gated content can help drive up web traffic and impressions, these are not sufficient for lead generation. Say you hit visitors with mammoth blocks of poorly formatted texts about why your business is wonderful. Now, this is outright clumsy and off-putting for prospects. Instead, you could replace text with a video. Over 70 per cent of marketers believe that video can lend higher conversions than any other content type. Note that good UX design must incorporate videos right away. In doing so, you must ensure they load quickly and play smoothly.

Building brand loyalty
Today, UX is the primary brand differentiator. It has overtaken the factors of product and price. Corporations that deliver the best UX via solid UX design stand to attain customer satisfaction and loyalty. This is crucial as acquiring new customers is deemed between five and 25 times more costly than retaining existing ones.

Positive word of mouth and user experience
Another concomitant result of UX is recommendations. With positive experiences, the word spreads to nine others, while those facing negative experiences will inform 16. Plus, online reviews and social media empower the average consumer. Note that over half of buyers only use a company having at least a four-star rating.

Note that quality UX can leave users satisfied enough to spread the word and become advocates for the business or product. Although time-consuming, it does pay off when you develop a loyal audience of brand advocates.

At the end of the day
The adage, ‘Customer is King’, takes precedence. According to American Express, 86 per cent of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience. So, one must not overlook user experience.

If you are doubtful about how to proceed with UX, do not fret, Lionheart Marketing can help. With over 10 years of meticulous experience in digital and website marketing, the team is proficient in creating stunning, responsive websites compatible across devices and platforms. With us, your Call-To-Actions shall get complemented with captivating colours and powerful marketing messages.