In a lot of ways, bad experiences with brand-owned platforms can be just as impactful to a user as a poor customer service experience with a staff member over the phone or in person. Whether it’s to do with a food ordering app, an e-commerce website, or your company’s website interface, brand-owned platforms represent your business just as professionally (or poorly) as any member of your company could.

A survey conducted on consumers in the UK revealed very telling habits to do with how poor customer experiences affected consumer decision-making:

• 92% of the consumers surveyed have had poor customer service experiences
• One out of every three consumers surveyed have abandoned a purchase because they were unable to find information they were looking for
• Up to 69% of consumers surveyed preferred to make their purchases online.

So how does having a reliable usability testing service help your brand reputation?

Usability testing is about putting yourself in your customers’ shoes, to pinpoint any source of grief or bad experience potentially caused while using your platform. These pain points can come in several forms, and can be as common as requiring your customers to click or tap a screen an unnecessary amount of times, just to place an order or book a service.

How can usability testing help?

A usability testing assessment can help you figure out whether your digital platform is easy enough to use. When applied as a tool for business, usability testing practices make for a critical component of any product development process. Ultimately, including effective usability testing practices as part of any early stage of development can help ensure your business attains a higher ROI from investing in a digital platform.

Applying a good usability testing service can help you understand more than just what is not working with your platform. As an example, it could be more insightful for you to know from the user perspective, what is dissuading your customers from booking a service or making a purchase, instead of just simply knowing that your customers are not committing to purchases when they reach your checkout page.

Take the perspective of a buyer who is browsing a very well designed e-commerce page. What good would the page be, if it were of the best design quality, but did not function as well as it looks? Seeing as this could be a problem for your platform, to look good but not work as well, it’s probably best to consider factoring in usability testing processes at the start of any development project, to make sure that you get your product interface right, before you launch.

Build a good brand reputation through usability testing

At the end of the day, ratings do matter when it counts to the wide number of digital platforms and apps available to the average consumer today. Users will steer clear of any negative reviews tagged to any app or brand. Usability testing offers more than just an additional layer of troubleshooting, when it comes to developing effective digital products and platforms.

If you are seeking to build good development practices within your organisation or team, consider how applying reliable usability testing methods can ensure that your brand projects an impression of quality and consistency among your audiences. Set yourself apart from the competition, by building a presence for your organisation that is continuously associated with high usability in a quality digital platform or product.