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To win new customers (and retain existing ones), you have to impress them constantly. For many brands, their website is a key player in doing so, but fewer have been able to achieve a truly consistent and connected digital experience for users.
The acceleration of innovation is driving the acceleration of digital expectations. The rise of generative AI will continue to create gaps between world-class, business generating sites focused on delivering the total experience - and those that simply exist to display information.
For its new Website Relevance Report, Coveo surveyed 4,000 website users to find out what they expect from their online interactions, where brands are lacking and what a truly great digital experience looks like. While not all websites are created equal, and every brand has its own end goals, there are common steps you can take — with the help of innovative tools like artificial intelligence — to create a fluid, end-to-end visitor journey.
1. Revisit Your Content Strategy
Today’s consumers are hard to hold onto. In light of recessionary fears, 60% said that they are more price sensitive and 39% said they are less brand loyal. As a result, every aspect of the digital experience matters when trying to build loyalty and trust.
Think your website is just fine because you haven’t heard otherwise? Think again. Coveo’s survey found that 55% of respondents say they rarely or never voice their complaints about negative digital experiences. This behavior is even more pronounced among Gen Z users. This means that you may be losing visitors — and future revenue — without even realizing. Furthermore, half of respondents even indicated that they prefer no digital experience to a poor one.
Brands can begin to turn this tide by leveraging search analytics to find out what kind of content might be missing, hard to find or unhelpful, and what resonates the strongest. These insights can aid in a stronger overall content strategy. In addition, it’s important to make this content proactively available throughout the user journey, in the channels and media forms they prefer.
2. Step up Search With AI
Despite the critical importance of digital experiences for brands, a staggering 92% of respondents in the survey said they often encounter problems when visiting websites, and 96% of Gen Z respondents said so.
Among most frequent issues for all respondents were:
- Poor site performance (33%)
- Lack of findability (32%)
- Missing information (27%)
- Disorganized navigation (26%)
However, when asked what makes for a truly poor digital experience, two issues stood out: not being able to find information on one’s own (76%) and having a different experience across digital touchpoints. This held true among Gen Z respondents as well. On the other hand, they are 46% more likely to be frustrated by lack of content discovery, nearly 13% more likely to be upset that they can’t discover new content, and 11% more aggravated that the site doesn’t allow filtering.
With findability and discoverability a major source of discontent, brands can look to AI to remedy this. Intelligent, cognitive search powered by AI can rapidly source answers from otherwise lengthy documents and pull together both product data and educational content to provide relevant answers that users would otherwise not be able to find on their own.
And with generative AI, users can get personalized answers aggregated from multiple content sources, further alleviating their need to search and click endlessly.
3. Personalize the Experience
Website visitors value their time. According to survey respondents, they spend almost three hours a day searching for information they need just to do their jobs. It’s likely they don’t want to waste any more hours.
Consequently, brands have an opportunity to build trust and loyalty by respecting their visitors’ time. Tools such as AI-powered query suggestions can get users to the right, most relevant answers quickly and help them discover new content.
To understand how important personalization is to users, consider this: while 62% of respondents said they’re concerned about the way their personal data is used, and 48% will abandon a website if asked to create an account, more than half (52%) of these same respondents said they’d be willing to share data in exchange for tailored deals and offers.
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Personalization is particularly important to Gen Z users, with 55% who said they want recommendations tailored to their buying habits and preferences.
4. Become Visitor Centric
When asked about what makes a great digital experience, one desire stood out: transparency. Respondents indicated that they are looking for features such that relay important information, such as urgency messages or social proof. In the survey, 48% said they’re motivated by messages such as limited time discounts, number of items left in stock or hours left in a delivery window. Another 45% said they’re motivated by customer reviews, recommendations for similar items, or number of purchases.
When it comes to issue resolution, users are also largely looking for ease and convenience. Fifty percent of respondents said they want to see the actual answer within the search results page, not just links. Likewise, they’re looking for intelligent chatbots that can provide step by step instructions and more advanced search filtering.
For Gen Z users, being able to access supporting content for a purchase was a priority, highlighting the importance of value enhancement.
Conclusion
Bad digital experiences mean less efficiency, less revenue and less trust among consumers. However, a website can be a major asset to brands if they’re willing to better understand visitor behavior, develop the right strategy and invest in solutions, including generative AI, that enable greater efficiency, better search and next-level personalization.
Read the full Website Relevance Report at coveo.com.
