The Make-or-Break Trend of 2024: Exceptional User Experience & Retention

Let’s kick things off with an intriguing data point related to our niche. Did you know research done by UXMatters shows 90% of users abandon a website due to poor customer experience design? With omnichannel expectations and digital alternatives ever-present, retention through cross-channel CX excellence has never been more critical.

As brands accelerate digital transformation with CX-led strategies, the importance of intuitive, cohesive multi-channel experiences cannot be understated.

Which brings me to my thesis statement — in the coming years, exceptional omni-channel UX will cease being optional and firmly cement itself as a brand differentiator. Forward-thinking organizations optimizing CX maturity through customer-centric UXD methodologies will pull ahead of late adopters. In contrast, firms overlooking usability risks disengagement and loss of customers.

Moving forward together, our goal is empowering your teams with practical UXD strategies and best practices for co-creating standout omnichannel journeys that retain and delight customers.

The Evolving User Landscape

It’s important we recognize the shifting dynamics of today’s empowered, interconnected consumers. Users have evolved into discerning, multi-device customers with access to a world of choice literally at their fingertips.

Consider recent mobile usage and churn stats — according to industry data, a massive 89% of smartphone owners now use apps daily (Source: Data.ai). Yet 25% uninstall programs within the first 30 months, here are some reasons why:

• Poor performance: Apps that load slowly, crash frequently or freeze drain the user experience quickly. Users won’t tolerate sluggishness as 73% of users uninstall an app if it crashes once (source: SurveyMonkey).
• Usability issues: Friction points like complicated onboarding, unintuitive navigation and a lack of clear calls to action frustrate users into deleting apps. A remarkable 88% of users prioritize a user-friendly interface when selecting an app (Source: Forrester).
• Lack of perceived value: If the app doesn’t solve a problem or offer engaging content/features worth returning for, users won’t see the value in keeping it installed. In fact, approximately 60% of users uninstall an app simply because they don’t find it useful enough (Source: App Annie).
• Limited functionality on free versions: When full features are gated in paid tiers, generous trial periods expire before value is provided. While offering a free trial can be an effective strategy, it is crucial to ensure that the trial provides enough value for users to recognize the need for the paid features before the trial period ends.
• Design flaws: Visual design, content and flows aren’t sufficiently optimized or personalized for the target audience. Inconsistent design and navigation can lead to frustration and confusion, ultimately causing users to abandon the app

The Business Case for Exceptional UX

Investing in exceptional user experience (UX) isn’t just about making your product or service feel good, it’s about making sound business decisions. Here’s how prioritizing UX translates into tangible benefits for your organization:

1. Increased Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty:

Creating raving fans and advocates is a powerful path towards growth and renewal in financial services. Studies from Qualtrics repeatedly underscore the direct impact that excellent CX design has on brand loyalty. Satisfied customers are remarkably more likely to:

• Remain lifetime customers: Research shows even incremental gains like a 5-point CX score uplift can increase repeat purchase intent by a significant 73%. This strengthens recurring revenue streams vital for sustainable success.
• Spread the word organically: Loyal customers become passionate advocates, naturally marketing your brand through positive word-of-mouth across trusted communities. This powerful referral channel reduces costly customer acquisition.
• Offer constructive advice: Satisfied clients are more likely to provide valuable feedback through surveys, improving products or services through an agile CX methodology. Their sage counsel guides strategic CX Roadmaps and innovation priorities.

Customer Acquisition vs Customer Retention

2. Improved Conversion Rates and Sales:

Creating effortless user flows and minimizing points of friction are pivotal CX optimizations for the digital banking experience. According to research from industry leaders at Nielsen Norman Group, delivering exceptional omnichannel journeys yields exceptional ROI, every $1 invested in CX design excellence can yield $100 in returns.

Key performance indicators strengthened through CX maturity include:

• Increased conversion lifts: Seamless interactions boost goal completion rates, a metric critical for driving new account openings, product applications and service enrollments online.
• Higher cart values: Intuitive discovery and purchasing elevates average transaction sizes, maximizing potential through add-on or complementary sales.
• Reduced abandonment risks: Streamlining checkouts and digitizing high-friction tasks like application submissions prevents damaging cart abandonment, converting browers to buyers.

3. Reduced Customer Churn and Support Costs:

Delivering joyful user journeys is mission-critical for building financial wellness brands that customers remain loyal to for life. As Nielsen Norman Group research shows, exceptional CX management meaningfully curtails costly churn.

• Lower acquisition expenditures: Retaining satisfied clients long-term through experience-led retention far outperforms continually replenishing memberships via marketing spend.
• Decreased support volume: Intuitive workflows streamline self-service, reducing the need for live agent assistance or costly call center infrastructure as customers autonomously resolve queries.
• Boosted employer branding: Seamless, empathetic interactions craft a reputation of ease and care that pulls talented staff while assuring stakeholders through resilient customer advocacy.

Defining Exceptional UX in 2024: A Focus on Users

As technology evolves rapidly and users interact across more screens than ever, focusing on five critical trends will help define exceptional UX this coming year:

1. Hyper-Personalization

Forbes and other sources indicate over 80% of users prefer personalized experiences now. To satisfy this expectation, dynamically tailoring every step based on individual behaviors, goals, and attributes as in personalized product recommendations or marketing will be key.

Examples of such dynamic, data-driven personalization include:

• Recommending additional products on e-commerce sites per a user’s purchase history and browsing habits.
• Personalizing emails and content based on past engagement like link clicks and open rates.
• Dynamically adjusting website/app content according to attributes such as location, language, age or gender.

2. Frictionless User Journeys:

With Forrester estimating the financial impact of subpar UX to be $2.6 trillion for businesses globally, it is clear that streamlining experiences must become a top priority. As the NN/G recommends, simplifying workflows by removing superfluous steps allows users to achieve their objectives with ease.

Here are some examples of optimizing for frictionless journeys:

• Streamlining checkout by autofilling details for registered users.
• Allowing one-click sign-ups for quick starts.
• Providing intuitive structures and calls-to-action for process understanding.
• Using progressive disclosure to delay optional questions.
• Making errors obvious and recovery seamless with guidance.

3. Omnichannel Consistency

Today’s users interact with brands across an array of touchpoints. As highlighted by the source, 73% of customers now demand seamless experiences between channels.

Achieving cross-platform consistency requires unifying elements such as:

• Maintaining consistent brand identity through colors, fonts, imagery across surfaces.
• Synchronizing user data like profiles, preferences, carts between web and app.
• Providing uniform access to support/info across social and website.
• Using similar design patterns, flows on all platforms for familiarity.

4. Accessibility and Inclusivity

Not only is designing for diverse abilities the right thing to do ethically, sources show it represents sound business logic as well.

Catering to the global disability market of over 1 billion people controlling $8 trillion in spending, per the reference, demands accessibility be woven into solutions from inception.

Examples of building inclusive experiences involve:

• Adding alt text descriptions for audio navigation.
• Allowing full keyboard functionality.
• Rigorously meeting WCAG guidelines for assistive tech compatibility.
• Supporting flexible font scaling, color controls and customization.

5. Microinteractions and User Delight

While microinteractions primarily serve utilitarian purposes, they also represent an opportunity to subtly engage and surprise users in an enjoyable manner.

As the NN/g reference indicates, microinteractions promoting positive emotions can result in up to a 20% increase in task completion rates.

Examples of microinteractions that foster user delight include:

• Animating UI elements subtly on hover/click for visual interest.
• Using fluid, decorated progress bars to encourage continuation.
• Deploying checkmarks, messages for success indicators fitting brand.
• Implementing predictable audio cues for multisensory gratification.

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To conclude, investing in exceptional user experience design is truly an investment in your long term viability and competitiveness. By centering the voice of the customer within a user-centered design methodology that yields delightful, frictionless journeys across channels, you cultivate loyalty that will retain existing patrons and propel renewal for years to come.