Art and Technology are coming together in interesting ways. Not least of these is the ability to enhance IT applications through the use of digital art. This is just one example of the many ways we can harness technology to improve any consumer interactions that businesses have. Improving the user experience means longer stays on your site, which leads to improved sales.
Reasons to Improve the User Experience
The user experience, or UX, is an integral part of any business. Whether buying or selling, whether in goods or services, if your end user is not a happy customer, they won’t interact with your site. A positive UX is likely to result in a return customer, whereas a negative one puts people off. Imagine how you feel yourself when you encounter a difficult to navigate site. The average time users spend on a site is approximately 54 seconds. However, if you can’t impress them enough to stay with you in the first ten they might go elsewhere entirely.
Tips for Keeping Customers Onsite
Here are ways to keep those customers onsite and enjoying the experience of being on your website.
Improve Availability
If your shop is open 9am-5pm, you are losing far more customers than you imagine. The world no longer operates during the daylight hours first established in the 1800s. Now we have shift workers, night workers, and let’s face it – that 5pm finish doesn’t suit anyone.
1. Service Desks
Improving your UX can open your hours after you close. Installing quality service desk software means each customer who has a query can contact you out of hours. Although this might seem like an intrusion on your personal time, you can load the answers to main queries into the system and have an AI based program help customers when you are not there. When someone does contact you with a query that doesn’t have a pre-formed answer, then the software will alert your devices.
2. Social Experiences
A second vital way to improve your UX through availability is to become known on social media. Social media is not just a marketing tool, it is also a good method to make your company transparent. If people can see you, they are more likely to reach out to you. Linking your accounts and posting regularly is all it takes to engage clients on a personable level.
Be Visual
When your site looks inviting, colorful, and fun, you invite people in. When your site looks grey, and dull, and overly professional, it alienates your clientele. Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, but think about your website like a book cover. You want people to know what it contains when they look at it. If they don’t know the story, they at least know your branding. Most people are visual learners, so a user experience with inviting visuals is a satisfying page to stay on.
The UX Walkthrough
The best tip anyone could give you for improving the user experience of your website lies in that second word. It is an experience. Sit down at your computer, log in to your own site, and experience it for yourself. Is it slow to load? Is it buggy? Is it complex? Or is it a user-friendly stroll through a virtual shopping center?
The power to change it lies in your own hands.