At 10xre, we strive to provide actionable insights that drive more informed business process decisions. In this piece, we look at user experience (UX) frictions that, when overlooked, can affect a company’s customer acquisition, lead generation, cart conversion as well as referral rates.
What is a UX friction?
We hypothesise that exponential growth comes through the elimination of customer friction. Friction is essentially a hurdle that a customer has to go through as part of the UX design. UX frictions can include customer hurdles in acquiring information, providing information, making payments or sharing content.
The reasons why UX frictions arise are a few:
Regulatory barriers
Certain businesses are required by regulators to collect customers’ personal information. This is especially prevalent in the financial sector. This is to comply with anti-money laundering guidelines or customer due diligence policies.
Customer relationship barriers
Some hurdles are put in place intentionally to develop customer relationships. By gathering additional information upfront, businesses can personalise experiences and make checkout processes smoother. Amazon’s 1-Click ordering, for example, only works once it has captured customer information.
Monetisation barriers
Businesses drive revenue by charging customers directly or by allowing third parties access to their customers for advertising. This requires monetisation gates to capture information or to collect payment from customers. Most digital newspapers and magazines now use paywalls to onboard subscribers.
Technological barriers
Sometimes customer barriers exist purely due to the unavailability of suitable technology. This may be because of technical complexities (e.g., limited payment gateway features) or prohibitive costs associated with a technology (e.g., implementation of IoT at scale).
What do UX frictions cost?
We have compiled a list of penalties for select customer UX frictions that apply to both B2C and B2B companies. Use it as a guide to brainstorm potential areas of improvement in your business.
Do, however, note that this list is not intended to provide highly accurate figures of attrition, bounce or conversion rates. The information has been extracted from various sources, and we cannot guarantee the accuracy of their outputs.
Rather, the key takeaway is that even minor UX frictions along the customer journey map can lead to significant losses for the business. So hurdles need to be removed as much as possible — unless they contribute to some sort of strategic objective.
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