You’ve heard of Return on Investment, I know. But have you heard of Return on User Experience or RoUX as I call it?
Or, if you’ve heard, have your attentively thought about it?
ROI is easy to measure. You invest your dollars, measure the metrics, optimize and win (or lose).
But RoUX?
It takes awareness, guts, resourcing, intention to serve the humanity and the more important…the willingness to act even if your actions may be criticized … all these and what do you get in return?
It’s easy to hire the most expensive UX expert. It’s possible to train a junior who has substance married with guts. But it’s not easy to observe the benefits of better UX in terms of returns.
Your objectives will drive your decisions.
As a retail store owner, if your objective is to make the maximum possible profit from every footprint that you receive, you won’t be much worried about the feelings your customers carry while waiting on the Cash Counter for 20 mins to pay for their $5000 purchase.
But, if, for you, the customers who visit your store are more than just “footprints”, then you might figure out a way where select salespersons will go to the customer, talk to them humanely, and make sure that their billing is done without they standing in a long billing queue.
What would be the RoUX in such case?
Reduced marketing costs? More on-target sales force? The feel-good factor in your staff? More sale?
All of these are actually the by-product of better UX.
Better UX, as I see it, ensures that the person at the receiving end, is treated as a living being, his worldview is respected and he’s rewarded for shopping in your shop.
What would you do if you were that customer? Would you hesitate to recommend that retail store to everyone you know?
No chance.
The real RoUX will be the delighted users who will become your raving fans.
And the good thing about fans is they want to buy your products without being asked. I wanted to buy an iPhone before it was launched. I want to buy iPhone 6 which is not yet officially announced!
Apple is doing something right. It has kept my eagerness alive about what they have to offer next. They don’t need to spend on PPC or mobile advertisements to “sell” their upcoming iPhone which may be just an incremental update from their previous version.
That’s the REAL Return on UX!
Better UX reduces the need for investing time to figure out marketing gimmicks to win the competition. Better UX is more than better engineering, it is a better way of living a better life …
