A friend of mine worked for a systems integrator, managing the company’s proposal-writing process. The business used a special software to track which proposals were submitted, by whom, and to what end. Ideally, the software would help the company understand where they were succeeding and how to improve their win-rate over time. The only problem? Reports were almost impossible to run—and no one trusted the data they produced anyway.
I have another friend who works for a Fortune 500 company—top of the line when it comes to company culture. When I asked how that company manages its Intranet, he replied, “Oh, no one uses the Intranet. It’s impossible to find anything.”
Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? Every year, companies spend millions of dollars on software that’s meant to make their businesses run more smoothly and with better results. But, for many, they’re tossing that money down the drain because of poor user experience (UX). Often, the software is so difficult and unreliable that everyone dreads using it.
Most companies understand the fact that customer experience (CX) is a top priority for retaining customers, but many integrators haven’t yet found the correlation to bringing that same CX focus to their internal teams. In today’s digital marketplace, minutes can equate to millions when it comes to downtime and human error. You could argue that UX is even more important on the workload side because it helps keep teams productive, improves morale, and aids in recruitment and retention. If you are currently settling for off-the-shelf solutions that leave employees frustrated and compromise productivity, consider the following.
Listen to Your Employees
If numerous employees offer the same questions, complaints, and concerns over and over again, you have a serious UX issue on your hands. If software is not intuitive, or generates reports that take hours instead of minutes, there’s something wrong. Your software needs to have the faith of the company behind it. Be sure to invite employees into the evaluation process when adopting new software. When it’s what they need—and easy to use—there’s a high chance they’ll actually use it. That’s what you want from your employees!
Understand the Value of Productivity
Monetary value comes in many ways. When you’re using software that is incredibly intuitive, you’re spending less on training and overall wasted time. Employees are spending more time doing and less time floundering—the latter of which is never good for the bottom line. According to one study, ROI on good UX ranges from $2 to $100 per every dollar invested. That’s staggering! Your payoff will be at least double, but likely far more, just by providing your team with tools that actually work for their jobs.
Know the Damage
At the rate technology is advancing, it should be empowering your people—not confusing them. Imagine if someone asked you to change their tires using a hammer. You’d think they were crazy! But that’s exactly how your employees feel when you hand them a task and sub-par tools to accomplish it. If your tech is making them feel stressed, confused, or angry, it’s not doing its job. What’s more, you’re probably losing money. Human error is even more likely when systems don’t work well. You could waste time blaming employees, or you could just fix the problem by adopting software with higher UX rates.
Get on Board with Technology
In today’s market, user expectations are set by giants like Google and Amazon. It makes no sense that users will have seamless and easy UX in their personal lives, but struggle with archaic systems at work. Integrators need to get on board with advancing right along with the new tech norms, not just reserving those advances for their customers.
If you’ve already embraced the value of CX for your customer-facing tech, I applaud you. Most experts agree that CX will be the top defining factor in determining a company’s success in coming years. Still, consider how that same UX factor may be impacting your internal employee base. Just like bad CX will cost you customers, bad internal CX will cost you time, money, and employee satisfaction. –Dan Newman, Cofounder of V3*Broadsuite