We’re all familiar with the idea of the “consumer experience” and most brands are looking for ways to improve their consumer experience to boost sales, engagement, and brand loyalty. To do that, though, marketers need to understand how their experience stacks up to the expectations of their consumers. With that in mind, the real question is: how do you measure the digital consumer experience effectively?
What Does “Digital Consumer Experience” Mean?
Digital consumer experiences include every touchpoint your brand has with its audience across digital channels.
Today, consumers are looking for personalized experiences on all channels, whether that’s a brand’s website, e-mail and SMS campaigns, or app. If your brand can’t provide that, it’s quite easy for them to look at your competitors – and they’re likely to do it.
Why It’s Difficult to Measure the Consumer Experience
Marketers want to personalize experiences, but often get caught up in the process of testing and optimization instead of doing things quickly. Consumers might not wait around, so it’s important to be timely and capture their attention or they’ll likely switch to a brand that can provide the experience they want right away.
That said, measuring the consumer experience is tough to do. Most brands focus on metrics like NPS and CSAT scores, which can be a good starting point, but these measurements of customer satisfaction don’t provide marketers with much insight into the consumer experience itself. Every consumer journey is different, so it’s important for marketers and brands to dig into the data to understand the touchpoints along the journey, how consumers interacted with the brand across every channel, and which points along the journey are the most relevant.
Armed with that information and clear business goals, marketers can identify which areas of the consumer journey can be improved to produce more enjoyable consumer experiences and better results for the brand.
How To Measure the Consumer Experience Effectively
Now that you know that it’s important to measure the consumer experience, how do you get started? These four strategies can help put you on the path to improving digital consumer experiences for your brand:
1. Identify clear business objectives.
It’s important to know what results you’re looking for when trying to improve something as subjective as a consumer journey. No two journeys are the same, but that doesn’t mean you can’t direct your efforts towards a clear-cut objective. For example, if you’re hoping to increase cart value, your brand could focus on providing highly relevant product recommendations to consumers along their journey. If you’re helping them find what they’re looking for or predicting their needs and wants, they’re more likely to convert – meaning your brand is providing value to its consumers while working towards its goals.
2. Determine what the consumer journey looks like.
Marketers can easily get caught up in what the consumer journey and consumer experience looks like from their side. Instead, approach the consumer journey as a consumer: see what path consumers take as they interact with touchpoints and navigate your website. Once you can map out key moments along the journey, it’s easier to figure out where to dig into the data and make consumers’ experiences more convenient and relevant.
3. Identify gaps between your goals and the consumer journey.
Now that you’ve got your goals set and you’ve mapped out the consumer journey, figure out where gaps exist between the two. Let’s say your business goal is to boost CRM registrations – are you providing opportunities to register at exactly the right moment? Do users leave your site when prompted to register?
Along with that, your brand needs to highlight the value of creating an account – figure out why signing up is a value-add for your consumers, and how it improves their journey. Can they save content or earn a special discount? Figuring out where you’re missing opportunities or where friction exists along the consumer journey can point you towards the right solution.
4. Find the right partner.
Some companies have data science teams while others might not – the truth is, you don’t need to build a team of data scientists, you just have to find the right partner. Once you know what your business objectives are and what the consumer journey looks like, look for a partner that can make an impact on your consumers’ journey and can help you measure the consumer experience with meaningful analytics.
Without the right data feeds to measure the consumer experience, your brand is in the dark about where friction exists, what’s causing your consumers to switch to another brand, or what’s keeping you from reaching the business goals you’ve set for yourself. With the right tools, however, measuring and optimizing the digital consumer experience doesn’t have to be so complicated – meaning marketers are free to focus on the bigger picture.
If you’re interested in seeing how Breinify can help you improve the digital consumer experience, reach out to us today!