Tag: experience

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What’s your UX like? 

User experience (UX) can make or break your business.  

I woke up at silly o’clock this morning dreaming about the poor UX in a particular bit of our accounting software. Every time I use it I get annoyed. There’s a similar irritant in our practice management software. Things that were poorly designed. 

We try our best to ensure that dealing with Minerva Accountants is smooth and seamless. We work with tech-savvy clients so we use a lot of automated chasing BUT we also ensure that any client who replies to the emails is met with a human response. 

We prefer to communicate by email for traceability and so that the whole team can see what is happening with clients BUT, if something is not straightforward, we leap onto a telephone or Zoom call. 

AI and technology can make things run smoothly behind the scenes but it takes a human to think through a human friendly UX. Take some time this week to review the customer journey in your business and make it as smooth and friendly as possible. 

1.How do the first contact you? 

2.What is your onboarding process? 

3.What is the process for delivering your goods or services? 

4.What happens when something goes wrong? 

5.How easy is it for customers to speak to a human being of they need to? 

What one thing can you do to improve each of these touchpoints? 

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What if I had never got back in the water?

When I was seven I nearly drowned!

I was a strong swimmer so I was doing a personal survival lesson in oversized pyjamas as I was the smallest, skinniest kid in the class of older children. It didn’t take long before I was struggling to keep my head above water and fortunately one of the boys, two years older than me, noticed and held me up while the swimming teacher leapt in to rescue me.

My mother was teaching a different class in the pool so she sat with me for a few minutes to check that I was okay and then … SHE MADE ME GET BACK IN THE POOL. Minus pyjamas. (She wasn’t that cruel.)

I am eternally grateful that she did as water is where I am happiest; either in it or beside it.

In later years I went on to qualify as a swimming teacher and lifeguard myself and, if I haven’t bored you with my ironman triathlon exploits then you’re very lucky. But how different would my life have been if she hadn’t helped me to rebound from that experience.

Of course there’s a business analogy. How do you bounce back from disasters? Are there things that you’re too scared to try because of a bad experience?

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Caffeine pill or freshly brewed coffee?

Plenty of people are dependent on caffeine so why don’t they take caffeine pills? They are legal after all. They don’t even drink instant coffee that can be made in … an instant. 

Instead they prefer to pay exorbitant amounts and wait ages for a barista to perform their dark art. And, even to me, a tea drinker, it is an art. Some of the best baristas even manage a performance up to the standards of Tom Cruise behind the bar in Cocktail (if you’re too young to remember then the trailer is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUwj3OE2LM4 *heads-up to turn the sound down if you have little ones around*).

So then it’s not just the caffeine what are they paying for? It’s the added value of the taste and even the experience of the performance.

If you want to earn higher prices then what can you add over and above the purely functional?