The importance of UX design in a digitalized sales process

What is UX Design?

UX design, or User Experience design, describes the process or the journey of a user as he interacts with a given application or website. It entails all the emotions a user feels, from frustration to satisfaction, and drives design decisions based on data analyses and test results rather than aesthetic preferences. UX design aims to anticipate the expectations of visitors or users and tries to make the interface as fast, user-friendly, reliable, and accessible as possible.

UX design is often mistaken for User Interface, or UI. The latter solely represents the design or finished look of an application or website, concentrating on colors, shapes, visuals, and more. This will reinforce the UX, but UX will also take other factors into account, such as usability, usefulness, and performance. These two aspects are therefore complementary and should not be confused.

Why is UX Design so important?

Customer experience has become increasingly important over the last couple of years. The excellent examples from B2C giants such as Amazon have set new standards in the industry: brands should spoil their customers with online purchase opportunities that are faster and more user-friendly than ever. UX design plays an important role to provide positive customer experiences that keep users loyal to a specific brand or product.

Customer loyalty is the ultimate goal. We want users to keep coming back, either to our website where they purchase our products, or to our application where they continue to use our services. A good UX design makes people want to come back. There are a lot of hidden rules when it comes to good UX design. The rule of 3 clicks, for example, tells us that users should find the information they’re looking for in less than three clicks. Any more clicks, and a user leaves the platform, or becomes resistant to using it.

Another rule to keep in mind when designing, is that the user experience has to be frictionless on every device. This implies that the UX design should be responsive to smartphone, tablets, laptops, and desktops and should take the accessibility and user habits of each device into account. A smartphone user is for example already very familiar with zooming with two fingers, or swiping left and right. It’s important to continue using the same gestures and rules instead of creating new ones, which will only confuse users.

A good UX design will give a user confidence and will make him want to come back to your website, web shop, or application. That’s why it is more important than ever to take the experience of your users and visitors into account when designing the structure and layout. At Hive CPQ, we have a team of UX engineers and developers to help you structure and prioritize the functionalities according to the needs of your users. This will save time (and therefore money) during development.

How does a good UX design stimulate sales?

Now that we have established the importance of UX design to create customer loyalty, let’s take a look at how it can also stimulate sales. Sales has, partially due to the COVID-pandemic, been increasingly taking place through virtual channels. With technology evolving and expanding so quickly, it has become easier than ever to let your distributors or end customers discover and purchase your products online. However, that does not necessarily mean it is always a pleasant or good customer experience for them.

When ordering products online, it is easy to get lost in the seemingly endless possibilities. In a time where customers can easily switch brands, a solid customer experience that helps users find the right solution, can make the difference between a loyal client and a lost deal. This is where UX design and guided selling come into play. With these, you can ask users a set of predetermined questions, which will filter out the solutions they don’t want and will lead you to products that will be interesting for your customer. Improving the customer experience like this significantly decreases the amount of time customers have to spent on purchasing, leaving them relieved and satisfied.

Simply put: The easier it is to find and purchase products, the better the customer experience, the happier your customers will be and the more they will buy from you. Starting with a good UX design and a guided selling approach will ensure you’re putting your customer first and building the best possible experience for them.

At Hive CPQ, we aim to combine a powerful UX design with guided selling to create a frictionless buying experience for distributors and end customers on the Hive platform. Let your sales teams focus on their business, and not on endless processes.