World Usability Day took place last week with this year’s theme being engagement. There are so many ways we could tackle this theme, the likely candidate being about engaging the customer but I’ve chosen to write about my experiences from working client-side for AO.com of how to engage the team around you to get the most out of your Conversion Rate Optimisation project.
Table of contents:
How to make your business listen
Without the support of everyone around you, that strategy you have created either internally or alongside a partner agency will not reach its full potential. You are fully charged with the importance of the activity you are about to embark on, but maybe others are too busy and disengaged to be excited about your big plans.
I hope that you take away one (if not more) of the following ideas to increase business engagement when kicking off your optimisation activities or any new project. This approach means you’ll spend time with the right people at the right time and get their buy-in as you go, rather than storing objections until the end. You can read more about collaborative working in a previous post: Why Collaboration Is Key To Conversion Rate Optimisation.
1. Decision makers
First up, you need to ensure all the decision-makers are thinking about the customer – and this includes board-level directors. No matter what sector your business sits within, the end user should be the focus and sometimes we need to remind everyone of this. Get these guys engaged in your strategy and the rest of the journey will perform better for it. Here are some ideas on how to do this;
- Set tasks. Give them some user videos to watch. Nothing beats that realisation of watching a customer struggle to make a conversion on your site. Take them on the journey with you.
- Make your data visible. The HIPPO in the room can’t argue with numbers! Take a look at how RSA ran an optimisation strategy for their £1bn worldwide business and ensured their global web dashboard had a regular slot at quarterly board meetings with their Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer.
- Let customers inform us rather than make decisions without them. Teach and preach the value of data-driven improvements.
2. Your peers
Next, your immediate team should already be living and breathing what you preach. But what about your peers around the business? Here are some ideas for engaging with your peers;
- Short burst updates. Work in a large business? Try a short 10-minute webcast that lands in people’s inboxes which they can enjoy at their own leisure. For smaller teams try adopting something similar to the agile methodology of stand-up. Huddle around and keep it quick and insightful.
- Share your knowledge. What good are all those insights if you are the only person/team who knows them? Knowledge is best shared, so share and everyone will benefit.
- Make it fun! Gamify the process and ask people to vote on optimisation tests. By engaging your peers in this way your testing culture will thrive.
3. Development teams
Maybe the most important people to engage with are those who will deliver the end product. There’s no point in fast-tracking all your research and testing to hit a bottleneck at the end. Your results should be influential in the prioritisation of work and if your developers see the value of the work you are requesting, the quality of the product will be far better for it.
- Demo your decisions. Show your supporting research to give value to the work and confidence in the longevity of the changes.
- Ditch the brief and bring it to life.
- Support them – Don’t disappear, be there to provide support and engage in their feedback. Include them in the testing culture
4. Knowledge holders
Finally, depending on the type of business you work within, you could be sat on a gold mine of information. If you have a call centre, you have an army of people who are closest to your customer and will encounter the same old customer frustrations on a daily basis. Find out what those are! Here’s a list of potential people you’ll need to engage;
- call centre agents
- commercial analysts
- buyers
- support engineers
- social engagers
- …the list goes on
Ideas
- Don’t dismiss their knowledge. They are the people who talk to your customers. Think of them as a community and another method of research in your armoury to support other methods.
- Hold workshops to gather feedback. Give them the opportunity. If you can regularly preach the values and methods of data-driven optimisation, people will naturally want to engage in your programme.
