The importance of testing and optimisation in your CX strategy
Thanks to new digital tools around data, segmentation and automation, brands can personalise their activities to increasingly sophisticated levels. But the important thing to remember is: your campaigns don’t have to be right first time.
The beauty of customer experience is that you can test, analyse and, if needed, pivot quickly. The ability to split your data into increasingly granular elements and test parts of it reduces the risk to your investments while enabling you to see what’s working – and what isn’t. Moreover, you can test and optimise nearly every element of the customer journey.
This can be overwhelming in itself. So bear in mind to:
- Test over a prolonged period and to the same group
- Keep the test and control groups the same for a sustained period
- Test one variable to see the impact of the change
Test and learn – 5 top tips for success
- Make sure to monitor: what you think of as the best message for that campaign, social media ad or webpage might not be the right one. Early, constant monitoring will allow you to see how things are performing, and to make quick changes.
- Test across the funnel: testing different aspects of the customer journey – not just at the awareness stage – will help you understand what turns customers on (and off) at different points. For example, different versions of a loyalty programme.
- Test across different platforms: slice up your content to make it appropriate for the technical requirements of each platform – whether that’s email, website, SMS or social, for example – then test different elements to see how it performs. This will give you new insights: what works well with an email campaign might not translate well to a paid ad. A well-written, well-timed SMS might be just the thing to entice a defecting customer back to your brand.
- Test different timings as well as content: automating your content takes away much of the headache, but don’t ignore the timeframes that you’re currently using. Is 180 days after purchase the correct amount of time to send a reactivation email? You might not know until you’ve tested it. And by testing it against other timeframes, you’ll definitely learn.
- Start with easier, impactful changes: avoid the ‘infinite changes’ loop by focusing on simple tests to analyse key elements within the journey. Simple ideas to optimise your customer journey include variations in headlines, page structure (such as heading hierarchy, use of drop-down menus, workflows), imagery (on page, in backgrounds), call to action button copy and forms.
Ultimately, what you’re looking to achieve is a baseline of what your current campaign looks like and to assess the impact of small, impactful changes over a specific period.
