74% of businesses believe user experience is key for improving sales

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Posted 13 March 2013 13:52pm by David Moth with 3 comments

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Almost three-quarters (74%) of businesses believe that the user experience is important for improving sales and conversions, according to data in our new User Experience Survey Report.

Increased customer satisfaction (72%) and customer loyalty (44%) were also popular responses, however few business appear convinced of the cost-saving benefits of improving the user experience.

The User Experience Survey Report, conducted by Econsultancy in association with WhatUsersDo, is based on a survey of more than 1,400 digital and ecommerce professionals. 

The research looks at the approaches taken by companies and agencies, and the challenges and barriers they face.

Here are a few highlights from the survey...

Benefits of improving user experience

The results show that a majority of business recognise that user experience is fundamental to driving sales.

When asked to list the three most important business benefits of an improved user experience, increased sales/conversions was the most commonly cited answer.

Interestingly reducing costs was one of the least popular answers, with only 16% of client-side respondents and 17% of agency respondents citing reducing cost-per acquisition (CPA) as one of their three most important benefits. 

This seems to reflect a lack of awareness as to how an improved user experience can positively affect the bottom line by reducing costs as well as by increasing revenue.

What do you view as the most important business benefits of improved user experience?

Benefit of user testing for the business

The survey also asked what both client-side and agency-side respondents listed as the primary benefits of user experience. For companies, the two most commonly listed benefits were to improve and evidence decision-making (68%) and to remove guesswork out of the design process (66%).

Unsurprisingly, agency respondents placed a higher degree of emphasis on validating their own deliverables (29%) than client-side respondents did on monitoring those of their agency (10%).

What do you believe are the primary benefits of user experience testing?

 

What aspect do they test?

Finally, the User Experience Survey asked respondents what aspects of their digital user experience they test.

Client-side respondents were most likely to test their own live websites (73%), wireframes and prototypes (58%) and landing page first impressions (54%).

It's interesting to note that agencies were far more likely to be doing testing elements such as a smartphone optimised site (42% vs. 28%), a smartphone app (36% vs. 28%), or a tablet optimised site (35% vs. 21%).

A subsequent question in the survey revealed that 48% of companies that do not currently do any testing intend to test a smartphone optimised site in the future.

What aspects of your digital user experience do you (or your agency) test?