How does user experience affect your company?

• In April of 2001, American Eagle Outfitters posted a 53.6% increase in sales because of usability improvements to their website.1
• Move.com increased contacts to realtors by 150% after redesigning parts of their website to be easier to use.1
• Ford conducted usability tests and redesigned their dealership accounting system, resulting in a savings of $100,000 and dropping support calls to zero.2

The bottom line is this: better usability means bigger revenues.

Why?

Good user experience is invisible. Because customers expect to have a good experience with your company, they don’t notice it when it works great. They tend to notice when it doesn’t work the way they it should. However, just because customers aren’t noticing doesn’t mean it isn’t contributing majorly to your bottom line. On the contrary, good experience design means real increases in revenue and brand equity.

Here are three area where great user experience directly leads to better revenue for your company: conversions (sales), branding and support.

#1 – Conversions (Sales)

Online (and off), conversions are the moments when an individual moves from shopper to buyer. When they checkout, send you their information or request more information from you, the customer is moving their level of engagement from aware to involved – one step closer to resulting in direct revenues to your company.

However, problems with user experience directly prevent these conversions – bad shopping carts, hard-to-find information and frustrating websites lead customers to shop elsewhere instead of putting up with the abuse of using your site.

Improving that usability means happier customers who are able to complete their tasks easier, leading to an increase in conversions, and ultimately, an increase in revenue.

#2 – Your brand is the experience with your company

Branding is the art of creating an image in your customer’s mind about your company. From what you sell to how you communicate with them, every touchpoint you have with a customer either enhances or detracts from this brand. As all successful companies know – establishing a solid brand is one of the most important items in growing a profitable business.

Ultimately, the user experience of your product has a direct tie to your brand. Good experiences, marked by easy-to-use websites and applications, leave customers feeling like the company has a stronger identity and offering. Bad experience, marked by confused customers and poor conversion rates, chip away at a company’s brand over time.

With your brand on the line, you can’t afford to skimp on experience. Making sure customers leave amazed every time should be priority number one.

#3 – Support

Often an invisible cost to many, supporting a website can take huge chunks out of a budget. Staffing call centers, sending emails to customers, walking customers through your site – all these activities cost serious dollars.

Luckily, improving the user experience of your website or application can directly reduce these costs by both eliminating confusion for the customer and helping them solve their own problems instead of requiring your help.

Support costs are only that – cost. They’re not an opportunity for upselling, nor are they a brand-enforcing activity (in fact, every support call is an increased chance to damage your brand). Reducing or eliminating the frequency of these requests by providing an easier-to-use experience for your customer is crucial in increasing the bottom line.

Want to see where you might be able to improve your website or application? We’d love to talk about it. Contact us and we’ll chat about how we might be able to help you out.

References

1. Usability ROI: Case Studies. http://www.usabilityfirst.com/roi/studies.txl

2. Usability in the Real World. http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/usability_in_the_real_world/case_studies.html