Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is a hot topic. Ecommerce teams try everything to increase their conversion rates, drawing on proven practices. They streamline their app or website to remove distractions such as unnecessary form fields and they add in online chat, testimonials and countdown timers, all the while conducting A/B testing to see what works best.
Devoting marketing resource and budget to all the usual CRO practices can certainly pay dividends, but if there are functional or usability barriers on your website or app that stop the customer completing the desired action, it’s so much investment wasted.
To use an analogy, it’s like running a big-budget publicity campaign for a major sporting event and then preventing supporters from entering the ground.
The missing piece of the CRO puzzle
This is why testing for functionality and usability of sites and apps should be an integral part of your CRO strategy. It’s the missing piece of the puzzle that maximises all your hard work on CRO. You may be unaware of blockers that undermine conversion and be wondering why your investment is not bringing results.
If your website or app will work only on some versions of an operating system or on a limited range of devices and not others, even the most determined customer will not be able to follow through. Their journey comes to an abrupt halt. Issues on the buy-now or submit-form button will have a similar impact.
Rigorous functional testing will identify where issues like these are holding up the user journey and will equip you to take swift remedial action. You can’t assume that the tech team has it covered. If you stamp your authority on functionality testing as part of the CRO process, you improve your chances of meeting your KPIs and emerge in a blaze of conversion glory!
Meanwhile, usability testing uncovers any illogical flows within your website or app that could sow doubt and confusion. To take just one random example, when we carry out a usability test for a client, our testers will verify the claim that a ‘24-hour’ call centre really is open round the clock. They’ll also help to identify where there might be accessibility issues on your website: does the website work well with a screen-reader, for example?
Once again, taking ownership, rather than relying on your technology team, empowers you to impact conversion rates.
It’s time to move over to user-centric CRO
If ecommerce testing services, specifically, functional and usability testing are not currently part of your CRO strategy, you’re missing out on a very important tool to optimise conversions; ultimately, you’re missing out on paying customers.
Functional and usability testing brings substantial rewards. We helped jewellery retailer Claire’s to uncover an issue that was costing £30,000 per week in potential revenue. Similarly, by testing on 15 operating system variations and 441 platform variations, we enabled Quality Cottages to more than double its website conversion rates.
