You can't win with price - the value of user experience in e-business

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Daniel KałuckiHead of UX, Monogo
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Have you ever wondered why customers choose competitors' more expensive products? Maybe bring your design to market and you are wondering about the result that people will appreciate? Objects from this product are already on your website, whether they will be there, this market, or the user experience.

On the topic of User experience that has been destroyed, a related publication that was created by us to create things on people to focus on strict. Of course, the possibility of choosing legalization, which is currently valid, and I do not want to download it, but on this publication, the initial things are posted. Without industry gibberish, let's look at the role of user experience in the context of product and brand success.

The lowest price no longer guarantees market success. Customers are lazy, they want to be pampered with personalisation and a seamless product experience, something extra. Let's talk about why the era of price warfare is reaching its end and why it is worth investing in user experience in e-business?

Functional website design

My experience and the data say one thing. If a product is pleasant to use, the price can be higher. This is a fact. Let me first cite real-life examples before we move on to data. Consider the success of Uber Eats. After all, nothing groundbreaking was invented here. There were apps for ordering food, yes - after all, I was already ordering food for delivery 15 years ago over the phone. The process was as follows - I took a leaflet, punched in the number on the phone keypad, placed the order, gave the address and a lovely lady or gentleman announced that they would be there in an hour

Then, a dozen years or so after that, along comes Uber. It simplifies ordering and payment to the bare minimum. Absolutely nothing prevents you from calling the restaurant and ordering a dish, often with free delivery. Who does this? In large cities, a small percentage of people. The vast majority prefer to pay 10 PLN extra for the convenience and leave a tip for the delivery man. The problems of giving change at the door if you paid cash disappear. Lack of coverage is not a problem here because you pay in advance. If you order for one person the delivery cost is often 1/5 of the order. Your dish is 20% more expensive, but as a user you don't care. You are paying for convenience.

This state of affairs can be carried forward to other brands that are undoubtedly successful. Apple, Tesla, Google - what do these seemingly unrelated brands have in common? A perfect UX, a sure promise to the end user - using our products will be comfortable and enjoyable. And this determines their success

A bit of statistics in User Experience in e-business

Leaving aside the popularity of these brands, let's look at the numbers. The exchange-traded funds that bring together the brands identified as 'UX leaders' clearly show outperformance of 400%. This is more than the average growth of the largest indices over 10 years (NASDAQ, SP500). Why is this happening? What ultimately determines why people prefer to pay more for Apple devices or buy an expensive Tesla rather than Toyota - a brand with more experience when it comes to motoring and the electric car market?

To answer this question, we need to understand the differences in customer experience at Tesla dealerships. First and foremost, impressions - 88% of users are reluctant to return to a brand or site when they encounter a poor experience on first contact. How does TESLA address this? When you book your test drive - Tesla opens with an app. Absolutely no conversation with any of the staff is required. What's more, you can borrow it for 3 days. This is a paid service, but for this amount you get the full freedom to test the car and the feeling that the car is there just for you. You can enter the vehicle, spend up to three hours there and then leave. All this with a personalised experience using a mobile app.

By contrast, what does the same experience look like at the automotive leadership brands? The test drive takes place for an hour with some sad gentleman who won't let you accelerate more than 80km/h.

Does this different, personalised, unique experience determine success? 83% of people say the 'seamless experience' at all brand contacts is the most important. In comparison, only 12% of people, when shopping, are driven by price when choosing a product. Surprising, isn't it?

Personalisation of the customer experience

What else determines success? The ability to guess the user's needs, a personalised offer and addressing problems during the product contact. Examples include Netflix and its film recommendation system based on the individual user's taste. Or Zalando, which will suggest a different size if I return an item because it was too big.

Where the market is heading is the unification of all customer experiences into one unique and personalised experience. Giving up targeting information per group and targeting the individual. McLuhan predicted long ago that the world was becoming a global village. Now we are taking it a step further, getting to know each of its inhabitants individually so that we can respond to their needs. Individual needs.

You can probably guess which way this is going? Only an investment in user experience in e-business will allow you to understand your customer. But the investment is worth it to get a return, right? It can be achieved, but by looking a little wider. Reducing the number of tickets on the service desk, fewer product returns, reducing advertising costs, increasing conversions. Yes, customer experience is measurable. Or put another way, it can be measurable.

The first impression is priceless

94% of users believe that the first impression is about how the product looks, i.e. design. And this is true regardless of whether we are talking about a physical product or a website. If you offer a product at an inferior level to your competitors, users will think you don't respect them. If using your product or website is not easy and requires additional actions, they will leave your site and never come back. Or they will not use your product. This is borne out by the data, as 46% of people will not buy again if the experience is negative. Do you want to lose half your customers just because you didn't think to take care of their needs?

Now the best part, you don't have to be a big brand and invest millions to pamper your customers. Often small changes can start the way to creating the perfect user experience. Examples? Here you go. In one project, adding a countdown to the end of a promotion increased conversion in an online shop by 0.4%. A second example, reducing basket abandonment by reversing the process when selecting a dish. We ask about allergies at the beginning and show a menu composed only of products that do not contain allergens. Both of these examples are simple to implement. And they work

Customer needs are the key to User Experience in e-business

There are quite a few ways to discover needs. But a proven process works best. We always start with personas and empathy maps to understand customers perfectly. Then we analyse the business process. We look at how effective the key sales parameters of the product or shop are. If for some reason the business process cannot be improved, we find another way to address the user's needs. Moving from idea to execution, it needs to be explained to people in simple terms what is to be changed and why. Everyone needs to understand what the changes are for. This will lead to greater engagement and better execution. Finally, you need to measure again how the improvements have affected the KPIs. And the process closes for us. We can then, fire it up in cycles

It can be crucial to test hypotheses at the mock-up stage, using tools such as Maze. This way, you don't risk depleting the project budget, on implementations of untested solutions. These first steps often allow you to spot small customer pain points that can be addressed with little effort from designers and developers. We do not advocate making a revolution. Experience design is a process that can be adapted to the needs of any business. See? Even UX work can be personalised.

It doesn't stop there, if you're feeling the topic and would like to talk already in the context of your brand or product, let's just arrange a 20-minute chat. No obligation / free / especially for you.

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Statistical sources