5 Ways Analytics Can Improve Your Digital Customer Experience
Customers today are increasingly searching online before making a purchase. In fact, 75% of consumers admit to making judgments on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design1. Be it a pair of sunglasses or a ticketing software, the first place a customer visits is the brand’s website. Which is why brands have to make sure they offer a great digital customer experience.
But, how can you be sure if your customers are enjoying a great user experience? Are all your visitors turning into customers? What’s broken and what’s not? Is that ‘Add to cart’ button working alright?
You can’t possibly be present at every step on every digital customer’s journey. So how do you find all this out?
Analytics!
Yes, analytics is a great way to improve your digital customer experience and use data to get more customers to purchase your product/service. A conversion optimization tool helps you track every click, scroll, conversion, and drop-off, allowing you to understand your website better and identify where it needs changes.
While there are innumerable ways you can put analytics to use, the ones covered in this article will give you a great headstart on how to up your customer experience game.
#1 Heatmaps
Not all parts of your website receive the same amount of clicks from customers. To improve their experience, you need to know which part of the website grabs your visitors’ attention.
While basic analytics lets you track the number of clicks every button receives, the data is scattered and needs to be clubbed together to derive conclusions. Also, it does not reveal which part of the website your customers might be clicking other than the CTAs.
On the other hand, heatmaps give a visual representation of where your website receives most clicks.
The red zones are the ones which get the maximum clicks and if you hover over the buttons, you will be able to see the total number of clicks. In addition, heatmaps can show you which part of the web page is performing better.
For example, when our login button was present in the footer of the website, one of our internal teams suggested that it can be moved to the header. Since we wanted to confirm its effectiveness, we placed a login button in the header and created a heatmap. It clearly revealed that the login button in the header received a lot more clicks than the one in the footer. This made us realize that customers prefer to have the login button at the top of the website.
#2 Scrollmaps
It’s not easy to make a customer stay on the website. All it takes just 50 milliseconds for users to form an opinion about your website2. That’s why your website needs to be thoroughly engaging from top to bottom.
Scrollmaps help find the percentage of users who make it till the end of the website. You can view where the customers are moving to another link or dropping off from the website.
In Freshdesk, when we decided to experiment with long-form content for a feature page, we weren’t sure how well it would perform. Nevertheless, we went ahead and launched the web page. Yet, when we looked at the scrollmap, we found that around 50% of the visitors had stayed on till the end of the page. As a result, we learned that long-form content works among customers too.
Scrollmaps help find out what kind of content your customers are expecting from you. Plus, you can easily recognize the parts that don’t provide much value to the customers.
#3 A/B Testing
Now that you know there are changes to be done on the website, how would you determine if the new variation will work with your customers?
When you want to bring about any changes, there’s always subjectivity in it. As a marketer, you might think your suggestions are the best way to improve customer experience. But, similar to having data to prove something’s wrong, you again need data to prove that the changes are for the better
– Naveen Kumar, Marketing Operations at Freshworks
This is where A/B testing comes in which allows you to create a variation and implement it to a portion of your website visitors.
For example, when we wanted to change the design of the signup page, we had a more design-heavy page in mind. We strongly believed that the new design would be a hit among customers compared to the current simpler signup page. But, the A/B testing showed that the conversion rate was higher with the existing page compared to the new design.
However hard you try, it can be quite difficult to understand your customer choices which is where A/B testing will help you make better decisions.
#4 Form Fill Analysis
If your visitors are arriving at your signup page only to leave without becoming a member/customer, you need to start reconsidering your signup form fields. After all, the more you ask a customer to fill before they sign up, the more they are going to leave your website.
When we wanted to improve our signup numbers, we used the form fill analysis. It tracked the fields where users hesitated a lot before dropping off. This made us decide on which field we can do without thus providing a smoother customer experience.
In order to make your customer’s signup process easier, you must know where they’re facing difficulties. Here’s where form fill analysis can help identify the fields that need cutting down to improve the customer experience.
#5 Funnel Analysis
When you have a multi-page website, visitors tend to move around different pages before converting into customers. With analytics, you can observe the order of pages they follow from the main page till they sign up. If a significant number of customers follow a similar pattern, you can set it up as a funnel.
This funnel analysis helps you understand the number of steps your visitors cross before converting into customers and where they drop off during the visitor journey. As a result, you will be able to find out the missing connection between pages and work on improving the overall customer experience.
Conclusion
With digital customer experience becoming a brand differentiator, your company cannot keep second guessing if the customers are having a smooth website experience. You need to get your hands dirty with analytics to make sure nothing’s out of place.
Right from the heatmaps that reveal the popular CTAs to form fill and funnel analysis, you need to combine every aspect of analytics. Only then, you will obtain a holistic view of where your customers are facing difficulties within the website and act upon them.
Originally posted by Swaathishree Sridhar
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