UX
For many organizations conducting user experience research (UX research) is something that’s completed at the beginning of a big project and left behind post-launch. For others, it’s a bit like spring cleaning. You know you should do it, and it could deliver some large benefits to the brand, but it’s something that’s put off, tentatively scheduled, and rarely executed.
But, for those who carry out UX research frequently, it is a powerful tool for ensuring you are continuously elevating your customer experience and offering value to customers that drives both loyalty and engagement. In this way, a sustained and varied UX research strategy and system framework are essential for aligning your customer experience to your business objectives across departments and workflows in your organization.
At its most basic, UX research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies. When done successfully, it can improve ROI in five key areas:
01—Revenue and conversions.
Removing friction from your product and user experience drives greater adoption, deeper engagement, and increased value to users.
02—Customer loyalty.
Greater ease of use and responsiveness to user needs and desires helps build stronger emotional attachments to the brand and product.
03—Lower operational costs.
Well deployed UX research and implementation can help eliminate user problems, support tickets, and service bottlenecks.
04—Lower development costs.
Development efficiency and effectiveness are streamlined with a proper UX strategy. It also allows for systems to be in place to ensure effort and investment are directed to where they will have the most impact.
05—Bigger, better launches.
UX research improves your aim and accuracy in each swing you take in the market, offering a clear view of user needs and desires to guide your product roadmap.
While calculating the exact ROI on UX research can be difficult—it is estimated that for every dollar invested into UX, it brings anywhere from $2-$100 in return. Many organizations have looked at the net effect that a consumer-centric research and development approach has on their overall business performance.
Forbes found in 2019 that UX and consumer-centric companies drove revenue 4-8% higher than their industry, and 84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in revenue. Over time, this commitment to UX can help sustain growth. Companies like Rover have been able to increase YOY growth by 20-40% for an entire decade by taking a UX-centric approach, and their most recent research-based beta test generated $4 million dollars in the 3-month pilot.
The level of competition and performance expectations around UX and consumer-centric strategy continues to increase as consumers have more choices that are even easier to explore.
In this competitive and evolving landscape, UX research also helps brands discover unarticulated consumer needs and fill knowledge gaps in the market such as the context of use, challenges, and opportunities.
But beyond performance improvements, customer satisfaction, and increasing revenues, as an executive, UX insights also help ensure alignment between your long-term product and business strategies, and the fundamental goals and desires of your customers. In this, the value of UX is undeniable and exponential in helping future-proof your business.
