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The
Insighter September 2011 View all articles on our new site |
Neo Insight's monthly e-newsletter on Customer Experience topics and techniques. We invite you to subscribe to our e-newsletter: Recent work
with a Fortune 100 high-tech firm is validating four killer web strategies and
proving the benefits of a top task management approach. The company team adopted strategies to focus on
their customers’ top tasks, measure top task performance, understand the ‘why’
behind customer behaviour, and engage in a process of continuous improvement.
These killer web strategies enabled them to significantly improve their customer
experience, and to quantify a $200 million benefit in doing so.
1. Know your top tasksFirst we
conducted a task identification project. People visiting the website were presented
with a randomized list of carefully prepared, potential website tasks and asked
to vote for the tasks most important to them. As in all our task identification
studies, we found what we call a “long neck” – a small number of tasks
that account for a disproportionately large percentage of the vote.
Knowing the
top tasks of their customers allowed them to really focus limited resources on
what is most important to their customers. They started emphasizing and
refining top task links and minimizing or eliminating tiny task links.
In
addition, they made organizational changes. They assigned managers in charge of
improving top task performance and created facilitation teams to help refine
some of the generic services affecting top task performance. For example, one
team was formed to refine site search and another team to refine the product
taxonomy.
The team changed
from managing content to managing task performance. They started measuring
actual task performance – not page visits, bounce rates and other common web metrics.
2. Measure top task performanceOpportunities
for improvement became clear as soon as we started testing top task performance.
The main culprits preventing task completion were confusing menus and links,
poor search results, outdated content, and
organization-centric terminology.
In one test
with partners and resellers we found that 54% of the top tasks ended in
failure. Less than half the people who attempted a top task were able to
complete it. The disaster rate was 12%. These people thought they completed the
task successfully but actually got it wrong. For example, they may have
downloaded the wrong software or found the wrong procedure for troubleshooting
a product.
Additional data collected by the company indicated that out of 25,000 new registrations on the website that year, 81% had never completed a single transaction. The
company estimated the lost revenue could be as high as $200 million per year Task
performance testing was conducted with existing customers, new customers,
people who frequently visited the website, and people who were relatively new
to the website. Some testing provided baseline performance measurements so we
knew the success, failure and disaster rates plus the task completion times associated with each of the top 10 tasks. Other testing
focused on understanding ‘why’ some people were successful and others failed.
Testing
task performance has significant payoffs. In this case, it enabled us to
quantify and focus in on failures in registrations and transactions that
amounted to a $200 million opportunity.
3. Understanding the ‘why’ behind customer behaviourWe remotely
observed and measured people performing top tasks in their typical work environment.
We quickly found opportunities for improvement. Some were as simple as just
helping people get started in the right direction. A mega menu was revised to
provide more immediate support for the top tasks and a new product selection
mechanism was developed.
We
conducted 4 rounds of testing, analysis, and refinement over an intense 4 week period. During each iteration,
we tested the same top tasks with new groups of 8 to 10 people. People were
asked to ‘think aloud’ so we could gain insight as to what they found confusing
or unexpected. Anything that negatively affected performance for more than half
the people was examined to see what could be improved. Changes included things
like eliminating extra steps, improving link labels, repositioning content, and
eliminating redundancies.
Design
decisions became much easier to make once we understood ‘why’ people were
encountering difficulty. We knew what we had to eliminate, change, edit and
reposition without wasted time with internal debates based on opinion. We were
driven by the data. The results reinforced and validated our design decisions.
In the last 3 rounds of testing the success rates climbed from 69% to 88% and
the disaster rates dropped to below 4%.
Improved task experiences delight customersCustomers
have been delighted with the improvements. Several people have commented that
the new mega menu provides them direct access to over 80% of their top tasks.
This mega menu is omnipresent throughout the website. Moreover, people who used
the new product selector mechanism experienced none of the difficulties
associated with the previous, hierarchical mechanism. They got to the product
family of interest in 2 clicks.
More
recently we’ve been looking at what strategies customers start each task with
and what strategies end in success. For example, navigating from the mega menu
versus the support main page or using site search versus a dedicated downloads
search. Then we rework the design to minimize or eliminate ineffective
strategies while promoting or guiding people down the path most likely to
succeed.
Major
changes by the search team, focused on the top tasks, have also delighted
customers. In many cases, entering a specific product name or number leads to
the top organic search result being the main product support page with sub-links
to the top tasks of downloading software and troubleshooting.
Other
opportunities to delight customers are afforded by thinking about common
follow-on tasks or related activities and offering them at the appropriate
time. For example, once someone has located their product and downloaded a
software update, offer to keep them informed of future updates. Since they are
logged in, the system already knows the product of interest and their email
address. Nothing else is required.
4. Engage in a process of continuous improvementCompanies who have taken a top task management approach have seen significant improvements in task performance and customer satisfaction. Several next steps can help to evolve the strategy:
Continue to apply the four killer web strategies:
Above all, manage your customers’ time on your website. Time is the currency of the web and saving your customers time will reap significant benefits, for you as well as for them. On the web, the customer experience IS your brand, your sales, and your marketing. On the web, the customer experience IS your brand, your sales, and your marketing.Learn more about how a top task management approach, paired with a rapid process for customer experience evaluation and refinement, can be applied in your context in a free half-hour consultation.
Related articles:
Quote of the month“Service is the new sales. Service is the new marketing. As
the world automates, products will become more and more the same. Service is
how you will differentiate yourself in the market. Service is how you will make
the next sale.”
Gerry McGovern, New Thinking Article, Oct 3, 2011
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