User Experience (UX) and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) are a match made in heaven when it comes to overall customer satisfaction. Although they both have the same end goal, they use different strategies and approaches to achieve this goal.
Now, let’s get to know the two before understanding how UX affects CRO.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
CRO refers to the process of compelling or guiding customers to achieve the desired outcome on your website. According to Wikipedia: “CRO is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product".
The target metric or end goal could be anything such as a customer making a purchase or a customer simply just signing up for your newsletter. CRO looks at the customer’s journey as a whole to track their interaction habits. It measures which aspects are working and which aspects are preventing them from fulfilling their goal on the website.
User Experience (UX)
We all remember our most frustrating and most pleasant online experience. Design affects 94% of a customer's first impressions on your website. Remember the last time you bailed on a purchase because the page was too cluttered?
88% of users reported that they are less likely to revisit a site after a negative experience. This negative experience can snowball and cause businesses to lose valuable customers. You probably resorted to another site as your negative feelings towards that brand lingered.
What about a pleasant experience? A website with a great user interface can increase conversion rates by 200%! In both cases, you’re more likely to share the experience with a loved one, indirectly impacting the brand. Nevertheless, only half of the companies nowadays conduct UX testing and only 29% of them employ a VP for design.
Benefits of Investing in UX
Investing some time in UX directly impacts business growth. This could be anything ranging from reducing page loading time to changing the scrolling setting and much more. For example, Walmart managed to get a 30% increase in revenue by just tailoring their customer experience according to what customers want. Even Airbnb gives credits to UX for reaching $10 billion in revenue.
How UX Impacts CRO
As you can already tell, there is definitely an overlap between UX and CRO. They both directly affect each other, but UX takes a more holistic approach while CRO is more specific with testing methods. UX helps CRO to pinpoint friction areas along the customer journey.
Take a travel website for example. A user searches for flights and all they get are high prices and limited flight options. This causes some friction. The CRO team will recognize this and create strategies to remove or at least reduce this friction, preventing further dissatisfaction. Both UX and CRO teams should work hand in hand for maximum success. At the end of the day, keeping up with the customers' needs is what drives a business.
Mobile Optimization
Mobile optimization is another great example of how businesses cater to customers’ needs. Years ago, not every website would be mobile-optimized. But since two out of 3 online users are mobile and more people are making purchases via mobile devices, you need a mobile-optimized site to attract and retain customers.
It’s not that simple to optimize the mobile version of a site because it has to perform as well as a desktop website on a much smaller screen. Half of the mobile users seem to abandon websites if they take more than three seconds to load, and more than half of them expect the same load time as computers.
Ultimately, a website’s success in the digital world is dependent on the quality of the experience it offers users. It takes a strategic combination of UX and CRO to attain this optimum website experience. This can have a very positive impact on the earning capacity of the website and its affiliated pages.
About the Author: Saša Vujnović was born as a computer and tech addict. Quickly realized that it goes side by side with design and started to draw with passion. Recently started to explore with 3D design in Unreal Engine. Everything became pixelated in my life.