5 Ways to Master User Experience (UX) in the Digital Economy
Every modern business wants to stand out and outperform its competitors. If you are a business owner, CTO, or technology consultant, this article will be extremely beneficial in propelling your company to success in the digital economy.
The first and most effective way to differentiate your products and services in the digital economy is to provide a better customer experience, and there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Businesses spent a lot of money on TV ads when they first came out, and many people love them. However, when digital ads became available, many TV ads were abandoned.
Did you know that global digital ad spending surpassed TV ad spending for the first time in 2017? Did you know that online sales in the United States surpassed 450 billion dollars for the first time in 2017? This demonstrates that modern customers are more demanding and are more likely to switch brands as a result of poor customer service.
This is why most businesses prioritize their customers when making product or service decisions.
How can you master user experience? Bear these lessons in mind:
Remove all traces of friction from the user experience.
In today’s digital age, frictionless experiences are critical. It’s common knowledge that today’s consumers have multiple devices, limited attention spans, and expect instant gratification. If your experience is cumbersome and unintuitive, you will have a difficult time retaining customers.
Customers frequently want to get what they need done and then move on. If your product makes it difficult for them to do so, they have more options than ever before. Many of the key lessons we’ll discuss are aimed at reducing friction in the user experience.
Go to where your customers are, don’t make them come to you.
Let me give you an example from Dominos Pizza, the 57-year-old company transforming into a digital leader by providing superior customer service through digital channels.
In the past year, 60% of sales came through digital ordering channels. This expansion has been fueled by a platform developed by the company called Dominos AnyWare. This platform enables the company to quickly integrate its service with popular platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Google Home, Twitter, Apple Watch, Ford Sync, and many others.
Dominos can better target customers and capture their attention by allowing them to interact with the company on their preferred platform. The company now generates more than a billion dollars in revenue through digital channels.
Another case in point is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. KLM believes that attracting customers to their platforms, such as their website and app, will become increasingly difficult and costly.
Instead of increasing marketing spending, they’ve adopted a strategy of providing functionality on platforms that their customers already use, such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and WhatsApp. Passengers can use these platforms to receive flight status updates, booking confirmations, scheduling changes, and boarding passes from KLM. They were one of the first to do so.
KLM is expanding its digital reach and reducing friction for customers by providing information when and where they need it by expanding the delivery of critical information to popular external platforms.
Use AI to enhance the user experience
Data analytics and machine learning, at their most basic, enable more personalized experiences. Consider the Slack workplace messenger platform. Customers have a plethora of options, with everyone from Microsoft to Facebook providing a workplace collaboration tool, not to mention email.
Slack uses machine learning to answer the following questions in order to make its product more appealing:
How are people interacting with the product? Which channels do they spend the most time watching? Who is it that they usually respond to first? What are the topics on which they post and read? What do they disregard?
Slack has already begun to draw attention to the items it considers to be the most important. Slack intends to evolve into a full-fledged digital chief of staff for each of its users over time.
Consider the task at hand and be cautious of brand disintermediation.
The flip side of meeting customers on their platform of choice is the challenge of brand confusion. Consider a ride-hailing service, such as Uber or Lyft.
The most common way to use these services today is to open the Uber or Lyft app and request a ride. In the future, Alexa will take command, such as “Get me a ride to the airport,” and then communicate with Uber, Lyft, and a variety of other transportation methods to recommend or automatically order the best option.
In this referral economy, brands that were once consumer-facing could transform into service providers that compete or collaborate to best meet the user’s needs and desires.
Create connected products that improve over time.
As the internet of things grows and everyday products become networked and connected, there will be opportunities to improve products over time as they collect more data and are upgraded. That is, the more they are used, the better it becomes.
Take Tesla, for example. Tesla vehicles are essentially computers on wheels, and the company was the first to demonstrate the feasibility of over-the-air firmware updates. Tesla’s autopilot safety features improve as the cars drive more miles.
By following each of these steps above, you will be better situated to satisfy and grow your customer and userbase.
