When scaling a business, it’s important to identify inefficiencies in your operations and sales performance early on. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t know where to begin when assessing their short and long-term business needs while learning from, and avoiding, costly mistakes.
User experience (UX) design can provide several benefits to companies who are looking to improve their processes and better connect with their customers. In fact, when deploying UX principles in different organizational settings, businesses can identify critical business flaws that need to be addressed while introducing solutions to fix them.
Here are five business problems that can be solved by integrating UX concepts.
1. Inadequate product features
One of the critical components of UX development is the introduction of user testing when releasing new products and improving current ones. Very often, businesses won’t truly know the impact that certain product features will have until they’re able to compile and analyze user data. Prototypes are a great way to achieve this and encourage a proactive approach to quality control.
User testing scenarios give companies the ability to better understand their customers and how impactful their products and services are in their lives. By monitoring customer feedback and incorporating it into your product design, you’ll help establish and maintain real brand value.
2. Non-Responsive website designs
Staying relevant is vital for businesses wishing to set themselves apart from their competition. One way this is done is by catering to the preferences of customers when it comes to engaging with your brand and using your products and services. One preference that has become a universal standard is the ability to successfully navigate through a mobile-friendly and responsive website.
More than half of website searches now come from mobile devices, and that number is only expected to grow. It‘s important for companies to have a proactive approach when it comes to the versatility and accessibility of web-based services. A seamless website experience on both mobile devices and desktop solutions is critical when maximizing your exposure and reducing your website bounce rates. UX design helps to recognize inefficiencies in the responsiveness of your site and helps you address them effectively.
3. Ineffective calls to action
Another challenge that modern businesses face is the ability to bridge the gap between creative design ideas and sales execution. It doesn’t matter how user-friendly and intuitive your applications and service are if there are no effective calls to action (CTAs) in place. Sales performance will suffer and so will the company’s bottom line. UX development helps to balance the need for adequate customer engagement and strategic sales persuasiveness. One way it helps to do this is by encouraging developers to run usability testing environments. A/B testing scenarios help companies compare multiple CTAs against one another and choose the most effective ones.
Effective CTAs are the lifeblood of any strategic marketing campaign. If they‘re not compelling to the user and are confusing in their purpose, companies will fail to see positive ROIs in their marketing spend. Understanding and navigating through the customer journey is one of the core fundamentals of UX development and design. By identifying roadblocks in the sales cycle and recognizing the need for more specific CTAs, UX can help to significantly improve conversion rates.
4. Lack of online visibility
At one point or another, every business struggles with the ability to gain better visibility on search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a vital role in a company’s ability to get discovered online and reach a broader audience. The problem is, the world of SEO is extremely dynamic, and marketing tactics that were used two years ago are largely irrelevant now. However, one thing that has remained consistent over the years is the importance placed on websites to create valuable customer experiences.
Search engines focus their attention on websites and brands who provide real value to their customers. And this isn’t just content related anymore. Just as important as the content you produce, how it’s presented to customers, how easy it is to navigate, and how fast it’s presented are all key factors in how well your website ranks. UX helps sales and marketing teams develop each of these points and improve the online visibility of the brand.
5. Poor customer service
It’s no secret that good customer service is critical for business survival. Ask anyone who has ever purchased a product from anywhere – one bad customer service experience is usually all it takes to take your business elsewhere. But while companies admit that providing a great UX for their customers is important, most don’t understand how effective or ineffective they are at accomplishing it.
There are many layers to the customer experience, and most businesses know how to tackle most of them efficiently. However, some factors may be out of sight and out of mind until you develop a process to identify and address them appropriately. Complicated check-out procedures, lack of trust signals, and unfriendly site navigation might be hard issues to diagnose but can play a significant role in customers choosing to leave your site. Developing your UX effectively can help you monitor the use of these website features while giving valuable insight to developers on how to improve their performance.
UX design plays an important role in your business by identifying inefficiencies in your business processes and helping your organization introduce effective solutions. By using UX design principles, companies can quickly identify problems like the ones mentioned here, and create actionable plans to mitigate them.
