3 ways in which your company can greatly benefit from User Experience Research

User experience is becoming more and more important and while most companies are aware of this, sometimes convincing managers to do UX research is a hard nut to crack. Conducting UX research has a wealth of benefits which can be translated into benefits for the user, benefits for the marketing department and also benefits for the company itself. We will explain all these benefits for the different parties in a series of three articles. In this first article you can read how UX research benefits a company, which is ideal if you need to convince your manager to pursue the path of a user-centered company. CEOs and managers on the business side are focused on ROI and work with KPIs, unlike the designers who focus on building beautiful interfaces that work and use different measurements of success. Yet both are equally important and both are a result of a great user experience, only translated towards different target groups. Let’s talk the talk of our interlocutor. Are you trying to convince your CEO of the benefits of UX research? Talk in numbers.

“UX increases key performance indicators by 83%” (source)

1. Great UX leads to increased revenue

A usable website leads to increased revenue because potential buyers are able to find and purchase what they’re looking for. In a following article we’ll explain how to make a website usable. But the fact that users can finish their tasks on your website will increase sales and improve customer satisfaction which has an influence on the loyalty. Providing your users with a usable website is more important than you think.

“79% of website visitors will search for another site to complete the task if they can’t find what they’re looking for” (source)

Don’t lose potential customers over a website. There is an easy solution. Thanks to UX research you can pinpoint how users want to navigate (or use a product). Based on those insights you can make a website (or product) that’s intuitive to use. Because of this, people find your website (or product) easy to use and coupled with the added value it gives, they will be inclined to pay a premium for what you’re selling online (or for a product that makes their lives easier). This increases user adoption and satisfaction.

Companies who invest in User Experience research have a greater revenue than companies who don’t invest in it (UX Probe).

Research by Forrester shows companies who have implemented user experience in their business strategy have gained 43% in performance over 6 years whereas S&P 500 companies only gained 14.5% over the same period of time.

http://solutions.forrester.com/Global/FileLib/Forr_Perspective/Forrester-Perspective-CX-2.pdf

Next to the fact that your users are inclined to pay a premium for a great user experience resulting in increased gains from the investment, you can also ultimately increase revenue by not spending as much on development and in so doing reduce the cost of investment.

2. Focusing on User Experience leads to 3 ways to reduce costs

1. Development time: When you’re doing User Experience research, you are able to reduce the development time of a project by 33% to 50% (source) which inevitably will lower development costs. The time spent on development is lower in UX projects because you know from the start what the user wants and how he will use your product; which leaves you to simply focus on implementing those tasks.
2. User requirements: Did you know that 70% of projects fail due to the lack of user acceptance? (source) This is mainly because project managers fail to understand the requirements properly. Thanks to UX techniques, you can gain insights into those requirements and only spend time developing the functions users actually want. Make sure you get confirmation on those requirements by iterative testing. We always say, fail early, fail often. This way in the end you’ll have a product that will surely meet the needs of the user.
3. Developments costs: Another advantage is the detection of errors early on in the development process. Fixing errors after development costs a company €100, dealing with the same error before development costs only €1, so to speak.

To give you an even better understanding about the ROI please watch Dr. Susan Weinschenk’s video.

3. Investing in UX research leads to an essential competitive advantage

Thanks to UX research you can find out exactly what your customers want, need and expect from you. This gives you a competitive advantage over other companies in your market. But you should be aware that more and more companies are investing in UX while customers are ever more demanding, their expectations continue to grow and they don’t tolerate bad experiences. And shopping elsewhere is an easy decision to make (usertesting.com).

“89% of consumers purchased from a competitor following a poor customer experience.” (source)

On the other hand there is also a hidden advantage, thanks to UX research you can ‘spy’ on your competitors. You can benchmark different websites (or products) and find out what users find good or bad about company x, find out why they shop there or prefer another company.

These advantages prove that it pays to offer more than a ‘good enough’ website or product. It’s definitely worth investing in UX research.

The next article on this topic will concern the benefits for the marketing manager in relation to their department and other related departments.

Ready to take the UX path or would you like more information? Contact us via hello@u-sentric.com or call us on +32 478 40 51 86, we are more than happy to talk to you. Or, should you be in the neighborhood, pop in and visit us at Karel van Lotharingenstraat 4, doorbell 3.2, 3000 Leuven (Belgium). We do pride ourselves on our excellent coffee and tea!

About the author

Katrien Pypen — User experience expert with a huge interest in marketing and customer behavior.

You can contact me via katrien@u-sentric.com or connect with me onLinkedIn.