Creating a good user experience (UX) can increase sales and retain clients. But what steps should you consider here?
The UX of your brand involves everything from your website to your sales funnel to the follow-ups that you team makes after you close the sale.
Ideally, every touchpoint where customers interact with you should be smooth and easy without hiccups in order to create a seamless experience.
How Do I Create a Seamless User Experience?
Your first step should be to consult your users. Unfortunately, many companies don’t have processes in place to implement changes their customers request.
UserZoom’s State of UX Survey 2022 asked 693 professionals in the UX industry from 40 different countries how they focus on experience in their organizations. They found around 45% fail to integrate the user research they complete into product development.
If you want to create a truly seamless experience, you must consider who your user is and how to fix any snafus they run into throughout the buying process.
Here are the top things to consider:
1. Fix Complaints
If you have one customer complaining about an issue with your website, product or customer service, you can be almost certain there are others dealing with the same situation.
Fix problems as quickly as you become aware of them to improve your UX. You may still find additional things that need tweaking as you go along, but things won’t pile up or get out of hand.
2. Keep Forms Simple
Keep forms to the point. Only collect the information you need.
In most countries, an electronic signature has the same legal standing as a handwritten one, so learn the laws in your area and apply them to your site’s forms for better UX.
Consider how many boxes the person must fill in to move forward in the buyer’s journey. Are they all necessary? How will you protect their information once you collect it?
The UX of your brand will be irreparably harmed should you expose personal data to hackers.
3. Cross-Train Employees
Your employees are the face of your brand. Hence, it is important for them to project the right brand values to a prospect online.
When people call your company, conduct live chat online, or interact on social media, they will very likely be speaking to a representative whom you’ve trained.
One problem comes in when employees aren’t cross-trained and don’t fully understand your organisation’s processes. If customers get one answer when phoning in and another when talking on live chat, you’ve got an issue with the consistency in your service experience.
For a seamless positive experience, make sure all your agents have the same information. You should also keep careful logs of any conversations.
When a customer complains on social media, they shouldn’t have to repeat their concern when the social media manager asks them to contact customer support. If you train the social media point of contact to pass information on to support agents, they’ll already know what the problem is, and have a solution ready.
4. Make Emotional Connections
When customer service solves a problem for a customer, they feel about 80% more emotionally connected to your brand. Train your staff to never walk away from a customer complaint.
If things escalate beyond their capability, they should refer the person up the chain of command.
When you solve a problem, you will likely keep a customer. They’ll also tell others about their experience and how you cared whether or not they were happy with their purchase.
5. Choose Efficiency Over Style
While an aesthetically pleasing design does draw users in, if you need to make a design choice between opting for looks or focusing on function, go with efficiency. The easier your site, app or social media is to use, the more likely customers will walk away happy.
Take the time to thoroughly test each interactive feature on your page. The goal is to avoid any points where the user might stumble and bounce away from your site or app.
Check for Issues
Don’t wait for customers to come to you with a user experience issue. Conduct regular spot checks on your website, customer service, app and any other points of contact. Hire mystery shoppers to report back and make suggestions for improvement.
If you’re proactive about UX, it will often take care of itself and you’ll present one of the best customer experiences in your industry.
Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.
