A Digital Experience Agency

CC Image courtesy of gothopotam on Flickr

And then my shoes started to squeak

I dunno about you, but I’m not a fan of dream sequences in movies and literature. They’re right up there with ’80s musical montages, if you ask me—cheap short cuts to avoid having to figure out the story. (Although, admittedly, some amazing plots play out in dreams… Hello, Dallas!)

Sometimes I find myself lost in a company’s marketing & IT dream sequence on their website trying to accomplish a task. And then my shoes begin to squeak.

As customers, we can only judge you by the experience we have with your brand. If we feel like J.R. waking up to confusion and insecurity, we probably won’t be back for more. Mapping the customer journey helps us understand where users are flat lining in their tasks on the site and when they are bailing out completely.

As with so many challenges in our lives, the answer lies in fruit.

 Low hanging fruit to bite

  • Delicious breadcrumbs and tasty on-states give the user comfort, letting them know where they are and how they got here.
  • Digestible content organization ensures they don’t have to wander through wormholes to find what they’re looking for. Make it simple, intuitive and familiar.
  • Consistent branding, not just on the site but in the tactics that drive to it, reassures users that they’re in the right place and on a focused path toward the task at hand.

Higher fruit for the pickin’

  • Rewrite the recipe of internal alignment, to get everyone on the same page. Because folks, if you can’t agree internally on the goal and plan, what hope can your users have?
  • Choose one lead chef, and give them room to work their magic. With lots of cooks in the kitchen—and conflicting definitions of what success will look like for any given project—failure is never far away.
  • Upgrade your equipment and systems, with your users in mind. Are you delivering a rewarding mobile experience? Can you fulfill orders quickly? Is your call center fully integrated with the rest of your business? All the amazing front end work in the world can’t meet your goals if your infrastructure can’t deliver.
  • Ask for feedback, and bump it against your site analytics to see what insights fall out.

A lost user is the perfect candidate for churn and quite tasty to your competitors. As my good friend George says, “If you don’t know where you are going … any road will take you there …”

Let’s put an end to dream sequence endings. [Cue anthem here.] Let’s optimize flows and add clarity to content. [Crescendo.] Let’s anticipate the user’s needs and surprise them with meaningful interactions. Let’s save the lost, one experience at a time. [Decrescendo anthem here.] That’s what we like to do here at Redonk. [Cymbals.]

So, what are you dreaming of for your business? Tweet us @redonkmarketing #dreamsequence