10 Usability Essentials for Business Websites, Greg Muller, Global Reviews

10 Essentials for Your Business Website
BTalk’s Phil Dobbie and Greg Muller, Global Reviews

Welcome to First Friday
Phil Dobbie
BNET.com

About Greg
Started in information design & performance support in 1995
First website project in 1996
Founded iFocus in 2000
Formed Australia’s largest independently-owned digital agency in 2008
Joined Global Reviews in 2010 as CEO
100s of design and usability projects delivered

About Global Reviews
Founded 2000
Operating in Australia, New Zealand and UK
Specialist in Customer Experience Research
Covering key touch points
Web
Mobile
Telephone
Email
Branches
Live Chat
Focus on delivering improved sales conversion and loyalty
(c) 2011 Global Reviews

Customer Experience = Sales

How in touch are you with how your website is performing?
Webinar Poll

Demystifying usability

There are lots of ways to get customers to your site but you can’t force them to act
Image source:
http://thinknice.com/interesting-halloween-costumes/

What usability is NOT
Brand alignment
A cleaner design
Secure pages
Interface scripting methods
FAQs
Comparison tools
Dropdown navigation
Easy-to-read content
Wireframes
Shopping carts

Nice design – poor performer
“the woman in the middle is a bit corny”

Usability is about...
Knowing your customer
Understanding the purchase process
Removing barriers
Giving a reason to move forward/act
The 10 Essentials for a Business Website
11 (c) 2011 Global Reviews www.globalreviews.com

The ‘essential’ list
Know your customer
Focus on your sales funnel and understand where you’re weak
Establish credibility quick and build trust
Provide clear sign-posting and calls to action
Cater for returning prospects
Provide support during a process
Make customers feel secure
Create easy bridges to sale
Deliver a personalised experience
Research, test, measure, optimise...

1. Know your customer

When was the last time you asked your customer about their experience with you?
Were they satisfied with it?

What are your options?

Usability testing - Self-service methods

More sophisticated tools...

Analytics
What’s happening on your site
Funnel analysis
Goal tracking
User profiling

2. Focus on your sales funnel and know where you’re weak

The purchase funnel
So you are trying to
The customer wants to
Secure & Public areas of Your Website
External Online World
Your Website

Attraction drivers: The role of search
User mindset:
Critical Research Path:
Top 3 ranking Providers shortlisted in Top 3 search results
Selected a provider found on a search engine
No preferred brand in mind before researching
75%
54%
64%
Stage 1:
Stage 11:
Stage III:
Stage IIII:
Compare the market 4%
Google 54%
Compare private health 7%
Google 17%
Bing 3%
Best medical cover 5%
Money supermarket 17%
Provider 1 5%
Provider 19%
Bing 6%
Provider 14%
Money hero 4%
Money supermarket 4%

Clear messages & value in search listings

Comparison sites influenced decisions
1st
2nd
1st
1st
Only 1% went to Budget Direct at the start of the task
in Car Insurance (AAMI 1st)
Only 2% went to HCF at the start of the task
in Health Insurance (equal 1stMedibank)
in Travel (hotels)
0% went to the Marque Hotel at the start of the task
in Retail Deposits
9% went to Bank West at the start of the task

Consider
When they get to your site...
Introducing the options
Initial engagement
Evaluating products
Deciding to purchase
ACT
Application form
Channel selection
Next steps

3. Establish credibility quick and build trust

Credibility and engendering trust
‘Why choose us’ info
Build trust & confidence with awards
Communicates Identity and provides relatable messages
Clean, professional design

We can learn a lot from online florists
Immediate benefit
Good categorisation
Security message
FAQs
Customer references
An offer relevant for the moment

Most customers find comparisons useful & trustworthy
Source: Global Reviews Survey Telecommunications Industry April 2010

4. Provide clear sign-posting and calls to action

Clear signposts to content
Multiple signposts related to savings accounts and content

Well written copy is key to differentiating
These 4 options are clearly differentiated

Poor scan-ability – missing fields
Heat map shows the first clicks by all users
Majority of users begin the process and missed the disclosure question which creates an error – not a great start.

5. Cater for returning prospects

Customer Behaviour: Returning prospects
Customers spend an average of…
6.3 Days
3.4 hours
over
considering options from…
To select
4.6 banks
3.4 products
How well does your site facilitate the repeat visitor to “pick up where they left off”?
Source: Google Behavioural Study Savings Accounts, n=200, Aug 2010

Offer a smooth transition from comparison sites
Many decided on the HCF productusing a comparison site. From this point 87% would wantto read more about the policyon the provider site
How do I find this productfrom the HCF home page?
Most users would repeat the quote process and some experienced problems
-Different product or pricing
Frustration repeating the same task
Offer immediate access to products on your website for customers who know what they want

Winning customers

6. Provide support during a process

Only 6% continued to application
Participants thought that the first page of the online application was a membership registration

56% failed to complete this registration
87% of users who entered the this page received an error message
This description does not explain all of the restrictions
35% abandoned the task here
 Ideally, let the user enter any format – at the least indicate the required format up front
Too complicated!
 Offer specific help to solve the problem

A much better example
Fields are in order as they should be completed making it easy to follow, step by step
Fields & titles easily connected and grouped to allow user to focus on each step through the page.
“I was actually surprised with how brief the quote process was.”

7. Make customers feel secure

A long page of text is not the answer!

Ease concern through the process

Users don’t like to supply personal details
“Too much personal information required for a simple quote. ”
Users especially didn’t take to the verification of their mobile number via SMS.
“This is only a quote and either an email address OR phone number would be sufficient for policy reply”

8. Create easy bridges to sale

Losing customers

Don’t make a customer work for it
?

41% did not click “buy” on this page
Customers did not realise that after clicking “buy” they would be able to select a plan

Remove perception of difficulty
Quote appears to be 1 page. Appears short and quick to complete
3 simple steps
Captures agreement to terms of use (or disclosure policy) as part of the process, rather than a separate question.

9. Deliver a personalised experience

Era of personalisation
Are you one of those who thinks they need to design for everyone?
We all respond quite differently
Customise the experience
Personalised, targeted messages

Learn from behaviour, customise messages

Making people feel like you’re talking to them

10. Research, test, measure, optimise...

Define your research program
Conduct research with your audience
Test key website functions
Watch and measure through statistics
Plan changes you’re going to make
Then is starts all over again.

Customer surveys are valuable

Create performance dashboards

A summary of the 10 essentials

The ‘essential’ list
Know your customer
Focus on your sales funnel and understand where you’re weak
Establish credibility quick and build trust
Provide clear sign-posting and calls to action
Cater for returning prospects
Provide support during a process
Make customers feel secure
Create easy bridges to sale
Deliver a personalised experience
Research, test, measure, optimise...

Final things to remember
Don’t go about it alone
Keep a focus on the customer
It s an iterative process and there is no destination
You can measure it, so measure it
Should not be compromised - for anything!

Thank you
Greg Muller
Chief Executive Officer, Global Reviews
Phone: +61 3 9694 2000
Mobile: +61 419 844 486
Web: www.globalreviews.comEmail: greg.muller@globalreviews.comTwitter: @gmull, @globalreviews

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