'Marketing & Technology'
The connection between user experience and customer experience always creates a great and valuable discussion. This has been particularly true at business development seminars, marketing workshops or one of the recent San Diego Software Industry Council panel presentations. The reason is that user experience and customer experience are inextricably related. The experience a prospect or customer has in using a company’s technology (including web sites, intranet, enterprise software, kiosks, PDA, cell phone or other wireless mobile devices) is absolutely part of the customer experience.
Customer experience encompasses the experience customers have with a company’s people and processes. Since processes include technology, the intersection between user and customer experience is made there. These experiences happen whether they are purposefully created or not.
I am frequently asked by CEOs and company owners: Does the user or customer experience have to be considered if the discussion is not about product or service? The answer is absolutely yes. The answer is routed in the importance of the pre sale experience by the prospect and the post sale experience as a customer. For pre sales, it could be how the prospect experiences advertising in analog or digital form such as a web site, sample software, how an affiliate is linked in, published product or service reviews and much more. These are important influencers of purchasing decisions impacting prospect to customer conversion rates.
The user experience continues after the sale and becomes a critical element of the overall customer experience as it combines how a customer experiences the support, usefulness and value of the product or services used. It also can include the status of ownership or usage, and packaging.
Most companies that have gone beyond usable products and services to design specific positive user experiences as part of a well thought out and executed customer experience program have one or more of the following positive attributes:
o Accelerated customer acquisition, engagement, loyalty and top line revenue
o Sustainable growth with slower margin declines
o Competitive advantage because the user and customer experience is positively
different; and
o Increased return on investment, brand and company equity
Regardless of their development stage, companies that are committed to continuously providing superior user and customer experiences show almost all of the attributes above. They are leaders in the fast company business of understanding and providing purposeful and profitable customer experiences. Examples include Four Seasons Hotels, brokerage firm Edward Jones, Lexus Automotive, Apple Computer and UPS shipping.
Where is your company along the continuum of user experience to customer experience? Are the user, prospect and customer experiences with your company being purposefully transformed into value for the business?
March 27th, 2008
The San Diego Software Industry Council presents:
Beyond Usability
User Experience / Interface Design
March 5, 2008
Register at http://www.sdsic.org/eventregistration.php
Hosted by
Intuit
Do your customers have a good experience with your solution?
Are you leveraging “the experience advantage” for customer satisfaction and increased revenue?
Focusing on how “usable” products are has been a recent trend in software development but being usable is just not good enough.
Come hear how leading companies are going beyond usability and creating engaging user experiences, for . . .
• Competitive advantage
• Sustainable growth
• Increased profit margins and revenue
Our panel of experts share their case studies, experience and examples and discuss how some of these best practices can be easily adopted at your company.
Moderator:
Sean Van Tyne, User Experience Architect, Van Tyne Consulting, www.vantyneconsulting.com
Panelists:
- Maria Melendrez, Usability Strategist, SAIC, www.saic.com
- Beau Sullivan, Director of User Experience, Mitchell International, www.mitchell.com
- Erikheath Thomas, Senior UI Designer, Intuit, www.intuit.com
- Jeofrey Bean, Principal, Del Mar Research, www.delmarresearch.com
Date: March 5, 2008
Time: 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm – Registration and Networking
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm – Program
Fee: Pre registration Only – SDSIC Members $35.00
Pre registration Only – Non Members $45.00
Location: Intuit – New Campus
7545 Torrey Santa Fe Road
San Diego, CA 92129
Register at http://www.sdsic.org/eventregistration.php
The San Diego Software Industry Council SDSIC.ORG
February 20th, 2008
Between a slowing economy, increased competition and advancing profit margin compression, several companies, who rely on technology to market, sell and deliver products and services (technical or not) are looking for ways of competitive and economic advantage more than ever. Look to your people and processes for an uncommon advantage: The one of giving a great experience to prospects and customers as they contact your people and user your technology to find out about your company and make purchases.
The user experience includes all the touch-points and exposure people have to your company. I will focus on the users of your technology, whether it is your web site, software, kiosk, a mobile device such as an iPhone, cell phone or PDA. These devices have software on them and it needs to be more than usable, they need to offer an excellent user experience. That is, an experience that is engaging, useful and one that will cause them to want to return, buy and be an advocate for your company.
Companies that come to mind who have made the leap from usability to being destination points for great (and profitable) user experiences include UPS, Apple Computer, Lexus, NetFlix, Amazon..com and USAA Insurance. They understand how to bridge the distance between usable products, services and technologies and offering a positive and engaging user experience overall.
Why do companies make the investment in user experience?
Companies make the investment because of the hallmarks of firms that have developed a user experience strategy and executed well:
- Accelerated customer acquisition, engagement and retention, and the higher willingness to pay by the customers.
- Sustainable growth with slower profit margin erosion.
- Competitive advantage through positive “market aligned” differentiation.
- Return on investment is vastly improved over the solution life cycle. This translates well into increased company equity, regardless of maturity stage.
Where is your company along the usability-to-user experience continuum?
If you are just at the beginning, then learn more about the default user experiences people are having with your company now. Are the experiences prospects and customers having (yes, pre and post sales) turning into positive value for your company? Are they converting visitors to customers? Are the experiences turning customers into advocates for real competitive advantage, long term growth and return on investment? Find out about what the best in class user experiences can do for your company in answering these same questions to obtain the user experience advantage.
February 15th, 2008
How do you like our web site?
Businesses frequently want an evaluation of their web site. They want and need to know how it compares to the competition. Equally important, is that most of them will be getting this assessment from the business development viewpoint for this first time. This is usually very complimentary to existing outlook of the web site developer and any search engine optimization (SEO) that has taken place.
The aggregated view of small to medium sized businesses shows that more than 60% of them are disappointed with their web sites.
Many people say they aren’t really sure what their web site does for them. Moreover, they showed striking similarities in “how” they got their web sites going.
Most web sites were bought from the outside by web developers or creative professionals or developed internally, frequently with little or no prospect or demand side information. Many used the web-site-in-a-box approach. The needs of the business were only occasionally included. In one instance, a seller of web site development gave away “quick content” to acquire the business.
Three Uncommon Steps for Accelerated Web Site Performance
More importantly, companies disappointed with their webs site’s business contribution excluded consistently three important steps creating the site:
Establish communication relationships with the market:
- Customer needs:
- Understand the market first
- Do not put-up content and push it out
- Communicate the “Do-Fors” that you provide
- Develop the web site’s business missions, specific purposes:
- What problems will the site help you overcome?
- What parts of the business should it accelerate
- Testing and Tuning
- Test with people who fit the your target customers
- Take the results from this testing and fine tune the site
Real Examples of Web site Business Missions
- Reduce time-to-market and time-to-revenue
- Qualified lead generator
- Expand product and service reach while reducing our costs
- Target a previously unreachable customer
- Allow partners to more easily do business with us
- Establish or increase credibility
Uncommon Steps in Action
A five year old high growth financial services firm was getting little or no value from their web site. Site support costs were up, contribution down. The company developed a better understanding of the markets they served. Prospects did not want to read about specifications but how the financial services being offered could solve their problems (within 30 seconds to three minutes).
The owners established their web site missions to be:
- Solving problems for prospects (what I call the Do-Fors)
- Company credibility
- Provide employees with an access anywhere sales presentation.
The results showed a 25% increase in clients reached in the following six months. The cost to reach these new clients has decreased by 10%. The site now serves the company as a two-way qualification tool and a distribution channel.
How can you use the three uncommon steps?
Think about the specific missions of your web site for solving problems and accelerating the business. How will the relationship between your prospects needs and web site be established? Use the three uncommon steps and measure the results and let me know how it worked out!
November 8th, 2007