High–performing online experiences rely on thoughtfully designed customer journeys. Journeys should be based on real user insight – including users’ needs, expectations and jobs to be done at various stages of the sales process. When organisations understand the thoughts and feelings of their users across all of their touchpoints, they can identify opportunities to increase conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
Optimising customer journeys for conversion
In this webinar, we guide you through the importance of understanding and aligning online activities to the sales cycle, co–ordinating online experiences with offline and digital marketing integration, and optimising the online transactional user journey.
Video: UX Bites by Fathom webinar 4: Optimising customer journeys for conversion. Retrieved from Fathom’s YouTube channel
Q+A
Q1. What program(s) do you recommend to create a good customer journey map?
A1. Before answering may we reiterate an important principle – that the quality of a customer journey plan lies in its content rather than its presentation. We’ve written previously about the danger of focusing on UX outputs which argues that a research–driven statistically–sound pencil sketch summary of a customer journey is of greater value than a beautifully presented statistically flimsy assumption–ridden customer journey plan which outlines the world merely through the perspective of the organisation and not the customer.
We typically output our customer journey plans using Sketch. By all means invest time in high–quality outputs but don’t lose sight of where the value lies.
Q2. How easy was it to source the sales conversion data for competitor magazines? The industry I work in proves quite difficult to get competitor conversion data. Any tips?
A2. In the case study we shared it was very straightforward to get this information, as it was widely shared on competitor and industry benchmarking websites. In that sense we were fortunate because the project took place within an industry sector where this information was available because of its reliance on advertising revenue.
It is not always this straightforward!
To get started, a simple Google search of “conversion rate by sector” will give you a range of high–quality resources allowing you to benchmark your performance. As we shared during the video call, there is limited value in the headline conversion number, as conversion rate optimisation often involves specific optimisation by device, by customer journey or by product category etc.
Q3. My company wants to share wireframes and prototypes with other teams within the organisation, how can I convince them that the other teams shouldn’t drive decisions on the product (they are not the target audience) is it something that you struggle with as well?
A3. We write regularly on the topic of influencing good UX within large organisations. We’d encourage you to read our recent articles on exciting your board and management team about UX, and how to persuade colleagues that they are wrong.
TLDR; get the user into the conversation by speaking fluently about data, and share lots of human stories to bring the current user experience to life in the minds of your colleagues.
Q4. Apologies could you repeat the name of that site you mentioned again please?
A4. It’s an article written by Pawel Ogonowski on the Growcode website.
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