The ROI of UX: why continually improving UX is good for business

Having a website is all well and good. But if that site isn’t driving sales, enquiries or leads for your business, it likely isn’t performing its duties.

The user experience (UX) of your site has never been as important as it is today. People want fast, friction-free experiences when browsing the web. They want whatever they’re looking for and they want it now. If your website isn’t up to scratch, you run the risk of alienating users, losing sales, and falling behind the competition.

The solution? Invest in the UX of your site.

Take a user-centric approach and watch as your business KPIs skyrocket to success. After all, investing in your customers is the most effective way to guarantee results. Without customers, you don’t have a business.

Understanding the ROI of UX

Before we get into the ROI of UX, it helps to understand what happens when your site has poor UX.

Poor UX trickles down into other aspects of your business. Poor UX won’t only impact your customers’ online experience but it will also tarnish team performance, and hurt your sales figures.

The bad news is that poor UX is damaging to your business.

The good news is that we can fix bad UX… and good UX leads to exponential growth opportunities for your business across finance figures, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity.

The financial ROI of UX

Let’s cut to the chase — most people reading this want to know how UX helps their bottom line.

And I get it.

If something isn’t contributing to your business revenue, it might not be the best investment.

We’ve seen the impressive stats that say how every $1 invested in UX results in a $100 return on investment. And Forrester aren’t the only ones to find UX a lucrative way for businesses to improve their revenue.

In their 5-year long analysis, McKinsey and Co also found that companies with good design (based on the McKinsey Design Index) increased revenues and shareholder returns at almost twice the rate of their industry peers.

You want to know the best part of the study? The companies with the best financial performance embraced the full user experience when it came to design. They went beyond “copy and paste” design tactics and created unique, user-led designs informed by the customer journey.

If the reports by Forrester or McKinsey and Co aren’t enough proof that investing in UX is financially beneficial for business, why not check out our Pigeon Loans case study. We developed an intuitive user experience across the Pigeon Loans site and app that helped generate $600K in crowdfunding and a further $2.5 million in investment funding.

Increased customer satisfaction and retention

Customer experience is just one aspect of UX and, by improving your customers’ experience, your business can increase customer satisfaction and retention.

Great UX can increase the loyalty of your customers, ensuring they buy from you again and again. This increased loyalty will also contribute to your bottom line. Happy customers are more likely to stick around meaning your business wins in more ways resulting in greater customer satisfaction, increased customer retention and stronger revenue figures.

Customer journey maps, usability tests, and persona development are just some of the ways customer experience is baked into website UX. Providing a seamless, frustration-free experience across your site can increase customer satisfaction.

PwC found that businesses who offered great user experiences reaped the reward of up to a 16% price premium on products and services, plus increased loyalty. On the flip side, 32% of customers said they would walk away from a brand they love after just one bad customer experience.

That’s all it takes — one bad experience and they’re gone for good.

The impact on customer satisfaction and retention is something we see firsthand on the projects we deliver. Taking time to improve UX leads to fewer user frustrations and, in turn, ramps up customer satisfaction and retention.

Enhanced employee productivity and efficiency

Improving user experience isn’t only about wowing your customers. Great UX improves the employee experience too.

Think about it: your employees have to use your tools, software, and interfaces. If they can’t easily use them, they can’t effectively do their job. Improving the employee experience improves their productivity and efficiency.

As Ben Whitter states in his Employee Experience book:

“Exceptional experiences can create highly engaged people and communities with the potential to deliver astounding business results.”

The benefits of enhanced employee experience doesn’t just make it easier for employees to do their job. It can also reduce human-error, ease employee onboarding, and cut down on training costs.

If you really want to improve the employee experience, involve them in the process. Don’t just work in silos.

That’s exactly what we did in our UX project for Blackwood. We involved their employees at every step of the UX project, making sure the software redesign met their needs.

We helped Blackwood improve the usability of their software for all users. If employees can easily navigate databases and input new information, there is a far lower chance of them getting things wrong and it will be easier to train other people on using the database too. In turn, employees will be able to complete tasks more efficiently and they’ll be far more productive when doing so. You can read more about how we did this in this blog post.

Final thoughts — Reap the ROI rewards of UX

Having a website that provides friction-free and seamless experiences is a surefire way to boost business performance. The ROI of UX is widespread from increasing revenue to satisfying customers and ensuring employee satisfaction.

Investing in UX is an investment in your customers and your team. The more you invest in UX, the more you’ll benefit in return.