In a previous article , we discussed how a whopping 78% of enterprises fail on their digital transformation initiatives and that banks experience specific issues like legacy processes, tightly coupled technical systems, failure of innovation labs, lack of proper incentives for being risk-savvy, and underestimation of the scope of change.

There’s so much information out there about creating the right strategies and processes to tackle digital transformation, but what’s often overlooked is the mindset shift that needs to occur to actually make real change happen. The ‘why’ behind all the time, effort, and resources you’ll put towards this needs to be clear or, even the most comprehensive plan will fizzle out and die.

And it can’t just be the senior level, every change agent within your organization needs to understand why the changes you’re making are essential today and not ‘after’ or ‘tomorrow.’

Nick Van Weerdenburg, CEO of Rangle.io, says that, “Digital cannot be developed from the margins as adjacent to the core business. It must become the core business. We’ve seen this scenario play out dozens of times over the years”.

When organizations fail to see meaningful results from their digital investments, it’s often because of a reluctance to change what’s working now, and this usually includes their core business model.

A common but unsuccessful strategy involves implementing ad hoc digital initiatives and side projects that are intentionally kept at arms’ length from the core business. While initially appearing successful, these initiatives ultimately fail once the business attempts to integrate with the existing operating model.

Digital transformation cannot be solved by simply throwing more money or people at the problem. Copying what other businesses do is also prone to failure because your organization’s context is unique, even if it looks similar on the surface. Fundamentally, business leaders must be able to articulate why the business needs to change and what the future of the organization looks like, and this requires a major mindset shift.

Digital has radically changed the nature of the banking game, and there are three important themes to take into account.

Customer experience is significantly different in a digital world

With the emergence of neobanks and fintechs, consumers now know that financial services can exist as a purely digital service. As a result, people in all age groups prefer digital banking over in-person. Almost 80% want to manage some or all their finances digitally , and more than half use digital banking once a week or more. Furthermore, 32% of customers are more likely to change banks if they encounter technical issues when banking online.

This change in consumer expectations is likely brought on by increased digital usage since 73% of customers say that one extraordinary experience can raise their expectations of other companies. Regardless of the catalyst, 75% of consumers now expect companies to use new technologies to create better experiences.

But it’s not just competition from other banks that we need to be worried about. Previously, customers would compare the digital experience of one bank to another bank, but now they compare digital experiences across all industries, making the competition even more fierce.

Essentially, the customer experience is now defined by every experience in your customers’ ‘digital-everything’ ecosystem, rather than just rivals in your area or industry. This is important because 39% of dissatisfied users say that they can’t accomplish everything they intend to in digital channels, indicating that customer expectations regarding digital interactions and services have changed. This results in a lot of pressure for companies to continuously improve and modernize the entire customer experience from end-to-end, making it fast, personalized, and evolvable.

We need to embrace the notion that a world class digital customer experience is not just a nice to have, it’s essential for survival.

The fourth industrial revolution will significantly alter the world

In the past, industrial revolutions have significantly altered life as people knew it. The first used water and steam power to mechanize production, the second harnessed electric power for mass production and the third utilized electronics and information technology to automate production.

Klaus Schwab, author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution , claims that the current revolution we’re experiencing will fundamentally, “alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.”

The fourth revolution builds on the third digital revolution, this time characterized by a fusion of technologies which blur lines between physical, digital, and biological spheres. The Fourth is distinct from previous revolutions because it is evolving at an exponential (versus linear) pace and disrupting almost every industry, in every country. The Fourth’s breadth and depth has the capacity to transform entire systems of production, management, and governance.

Current innovations brought by the third digital revolution like processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge will reach almost unlimited levels, while new emergent technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing will experience breakthroughs in the Fourth.

For example, artificial intelligence is already pervasive in our daily lives in the form of self-driving cars, drones, virtual assistants, and translation software driven by an exponential increase in computing power and big data processing. Consequently, 62% of customers are open to the use of AI to improve experiences – up from 59% in 2018.

For businesses, this means that new technologies will create completely novel ways of serving existing needs and significantly disrupt existing industry value chains. Those that are slow to adopt this new technology will therefore fall behind fast, meanwhile early adopters could gain a competitive advantage.

Banks will also have to keep up with evolving consumer expectations as physical products and services can now be enhanced with digital capabilities.

Divided, hierarchical organizations aren’t fit for the digital age

The divided and hierarchical organizational structure is no longer fit for purpose when applied in unstable and uncertain contexts, like the digital world and the Fourth industrial revolution, where value is generated through an unpredictable innovation process.

Instead, an adaptive environment is needed where employees feel safe to ask questions, experiment, and apply divergent thinking in order to discover the right solutions for the challenge at hand.

The divided hierarchy, where work is divided and distributed into various zones performing highly specific and well-defined tasks worked well for stable environments like manufacturing, because the work is often routine, repetitive, and knowable. Dividing up the tasks created value because the process maximized efficiency and enabled scale. However, most of the work involved in digital transformation is neither routine, repetitive, or knowable so a different process is needed.

The new organizational structure needs to enable high-quality information flow, cross-functional collaboration, and daily learning. For example, measures can be taken to foster psychological safety, the ability to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career in the workplace. Leaders can frame work as a learning rather than an execution problem, acknowledge their own fallibility, and model curiosity by asking lots of questions.

Divergent thinking, the ability to generate new ideas, can also be practiced more effectively if separated and practiced in a different setting where convergent thinking, the process of thinking about what to do with those ideas, occurs.

Anne Manning states that divergent thinking is akin to reaching up while convergent thinking is akin to reaching down. If you try to do both at the same time, you will end up not doing either, so it’s best to do both actions in separate instances.

Start with why

There are a number of challenges financial institutions need to overcome to get on track with their digital transformation. But Bertrand Karerangabo, Chief Strategy Officer at Rangle.io believes that, “transformation is achievable — in every organization, and within every department and line of business.”

However, it will require, not just new policies, but a shift in mindset and culture. The first thing that needs to be clear for everyone, from the executive level to the newest hire, isn’t how this change will happen but why change is essential and what factors are driving it.

The two types of consumers you’ll need to woo this holiday season

As the pandemic wears on, it’s clear that it’s changing business and consumption models in both predictable and unpredictable ways.

On one hand, personal safety and security are still top-of-mind for consumers, driving changes in everything from online shopping to brick-and-mortar store layouts and delivery models.

On the other hand, despite a deep recession and a highly disruptive business environment, some retailers are flourishing.

A starting point in approaching retailing in the time of coronavirus is to understand that it’s currently a tale of two consumers. While millions have lost their jobs, many who remained working skipped expensive vacations and were limited in attending live sports and entertainment. As a result, they have more discretionary income available to spend on high-ticket gift items for the home.

For retailers, it’s critical to understand how to navigate through this new and largely uncharted territory — including coping with markedly different holiday shopping and spending patterns.

Companies that get things right will not only see an immediate uptick in revenue, they’re likely to forge stronger long-term relationships with customers. In fact, consulting firm KPMG found that brands that make a positive impact on people’s lives grow 2.5 times more than brands with a low perceived impact.

What’s in store

It’s no secret that retailers are learning on the fly how to cope with the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Although it’s tempting to hunker down — and double down — on time-tested marketing and sales methods, now is the time to rethink and rewire sales, operations, logistics, and support.

It’s also the time to rethink and rewire e-commerce platforms, web and app interfaces, workflows, and supply chains in time for the upcoming holiday season. Those willing to innovate and make bold bets will likely come out on top.

As the pandemic continues, the likelihood increases that consumers with disposable income will purchase higher-ticket items fit for a pandemic lifestyle — and buy them earlier than ever to ensure they have them for the holidays.

Think pool tables, fitness equipment like Peloton, the latest video game consoles, specialized software, kitchen appliances and cooking tools, homebrewing kits, musical instruments, boats, and other outdoor items.

However, these higher priced items come with a few ‘gotchas’ for businesses. While they often produce higher revenues and improved profit margins, they also represent risk in the form of unsold inventory and expensive returns.

This holiday season it’s critical to ensure adequate product availability, lock down contracts, and get items to customers on schedule.

In fact, an Adobe Digital Economy Index (DEI) survey found that one third of consumers have already experienced shipping delays on their August online orders.  It’s highly likely that many consumers will be shopping for the holidays early this year.

Yet at the same time, many cash-strapped consumers will be looking for bargains. Retailers must address this segment of the marketplace too when thinking about their discount strategies for the holiday season.

In many instances, it’s critical to rethink how shopping and sales take place, both at physical stores and online. A lthough most stores have already modified their layouts and displays, it may be necessary to regulate the number of people allowed in a store — and strategize how to manage people camping out for a Black Friday opening.

And while concepts such as delivery lockers and curbside pickup aren’t exactly new, getting things right during the busy holiday season may require updated technology, workflows, and employee practices.

In order to avoid chaos at the curbside — and one can only imagine how challenging things could become if too many people show up and overcrowd pickup areas — it’s crucial to get the logistics and timing right.

It may be necessary, for example, to update your mobile app experience or use text notifications to inform customers about optimal pickup windows so they can avoid peak traffic and frustrating delays.

This may require geofencing techniques that can help determine how many people are waiting in a parking lot and what they are picking up so that crews can begin to fulfill orders as soon as customers approach a curbside pickup. Possible shipping delays caused by weather or COVID-19 may ratchet up consumer anxiety and prompt more people to use curbside pickup stations.

However, it’s also important to focus on e-commerce and think like a digitally native brand. As the pandemic has unfolded, it has become increasingly clear that many people are now completely comfortable shopping online.

The latest DEI shows that online sales exceeded $2 billion every single day between May and June. It’s essential that websites and mobile commerce apps are designed well but also display accurate inventory readings and delivery dates and offer simple and streamlined payment options.

Unfortunately, many retailers fall short at checkout. They lack options for Apple Pay and Android Pay, for example, thus requiring customers to manually type in all the data, including a credit card number. This leads to friction, frustration, and, more often times than not, abandoned shopping carts.

Staffing considerations

The 2020 holiday season will require attention to other issues too. One of the biggest is staffing. In addition to security guards to monitor the wearing of masks and prevent overcrowding in-store, there will be a need to redistribute workers — and perhaps hire new or seasonal employees.

As business models evolve to address COVID-19, e-commerce fulfillment centers, warehouses, curbside pickup stations, and other locations will also have very different staffing requirements — especially on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when there will be heavy traffic — and perhaps even multiple orders for the same items to avoid missing out.

In addition, store hours will undoubtedly change and some spaces with underperforming sales — particularly in malls — could become dark stores that take on a convertible role as a store and a fulfillment center (or only the latter) depending on the time of day. In some cases, 24-hour operations with shorter work shifts may be necessary. It’s also wise to build in flexible shipping with multiple carriers for packages and home deliveries.

Finally, there’s the challenge of maintaining high levels of customer service and support while accommodating easy returns. Expect a crush of inquiries as people unwrap gifts. It may be necessary to boost staffing in call centers and at support desks during the holidays, including 24×7 operations with shorter shifts.

Stringent COVID-19 screening policies and generous personal protective equipment (PPE) policies will also be important in attracting and retaining workers. Yet, at the same time, automated service and support is more important than ever. Chatbots, artificial intelligence, and online knowledge bases can aid in reducing wait times, stress, and product returns. Simplified return policies can reduce stress and costs.

The end goal for retailers should be to use technology to automate as many processes and tasks as possible — and avoid, quite literally, touchpoints that spread the virus.

This requires executives to get an early start on securing inventory, procuring fulfillment lockers, working out the kinks in curbside pickups, automating warehouse processes, and streamlining apps, checkout, support, and return processes to reflect this new normal. It also requires a focus on flexible staffing. This holiday season promises to deliver a markedly different experience for all.

These 4 types of website visitors will get you higher conversion rates

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About two years ago, when I was writing my thesis in Business Analytics, I had zero clues that my career will bring me into the world of UX. At that point, I was working in Digital Marketing and wanted to use my thesis to help a client make smarter decisions and get more business inquiries (conversions) while investing in digital advertising.

I’ve revisited this research and I’ll try to share my findings the best way I can. It’s probably nothing groundbreaking or eye-opening, but it might help some of you shape some studies of your own or help you prove some ideas you had in your work.

This article is a part of my thesis “The role of multivariate analysis in evaluating KPIs for Digital Marketing activities,” done in September 2017. at the University of Belgrade, under the direction of Dobrota Marina, PhD.

Study summary

In this study, the idea was to collect 12 months’ worth of data on visitor behaviors and use the findings to improve marketing efforts. The company in question is Maxifit, a distributor of fitness equipment (B2B segment) in the Balkans region — Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro.

Objectives

Understand which user segments show behaviors related to conversions

Understand which channels bring higher-quality visitors

Give the client enough information to help him better invest the Marketing budget in different channels and targeting options

Research process

Make an initial hypothesis about the relationship between user behavior and positive results

Collect data about the user behavior

Use multivariate analysis to process the data

Present key findings and give recommendations

Digital Marketing is considered to play a dominant role in today’s business world. The traditional media is stepping down, and the shift toward new technologies is inevitable. Consequently, investments in Digital Marketing activities are growing daily. That is why it is necessary to make informed decisions, which will return the investments to the greatest possible extent.

To briefly give some context, Maxifit is a company that is an exclusive distributor of XBody EMS fitness devices for the Balkans region (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia). Their main goal is to sell as many XBody devices or open Maxifit brand franchises as possible.

Usually, in e-commerce businesses, it is easy to draw a correlation between our activities and the results, because we can see direct sales online. In this case, the product is very expensive and a contract needs to be signed before purchase. That’s why our goal is to achieve as many email inquiries on the website from people interested in purchasing the product. That is what we would call a “conversion.” Then the sales staff takes over.

Research model  and hypotheses

The goal of all marketing activities is to get as many conversions as possible. In order for the conversion to happen, a potential customer has to go through the sales funnel. The focus of this study was the top and the middle part of the sales funnel — brand awareness and showing interest.

H1: User behavior on the website affects the conversion probability

H2: There is a significant correlation between the means of acquiring users and their website behavior

In this article, I will solely focus on Hypotheses 1, since it is more closely related to the topic User Experience, while the other one might help digital marketers.

Collected data, variables, and user Segments

“The most valuable users are the ones who navigate deeper into the website — they are usually returning visitors, who come from the search engines, visit multiple pages on the website and have a higher average visit duration.”

According to previous research (Plaza, 2011), visitors that are expressing the following behaviors have greater indications that they will become our customers:

Spending more time on the website

Visiting multiple pages on the website

Visiting the website more than once

Visiting website from search engines

This is why I’ve chosen to match different user segments with variables related to the indicators above and see what kind of relationship they have.

Variables that indicate positive behaviors:

Sessions — Number of visits an individual user has on the website

Bounce Rate — What is the percent of users who leave the website right after their first page (landing page)

Pages per Session — Number of pages visited during one session

Average Session Duration — How long does, on average, a user stay on the website during one session

User segments that were tested:

Age groups

Device used — desktop or mobile

New or returning visitors

Acquisition channel — Facebook ads or Google AdWords platform

The fun part — study results

H1a: Is there a significant difference between users who come from mobile and desktop devices?

To analyze 730 samples, I’ve used the Independent Samples T-test and Mann-Whitney U test for confirmation.

A bar chart that shows average values of variables for users visiting from Desktop and Mobile devices.

With a statistical significance of 1%, the tests have determined the following:

Sessions: The data indicate that more sessions per day come from mobile devices, with the same budget allocations

Bounce Rate: The results claim that a bigger Bounce Rate is noticed with users who come from mobile devices

Pages per Session: Users who come from desktop devices are visiting, on average, a larger amount of pages than users coming from mobile devices

Average Session Duration: Data shows that users on desktop devices spend more time on the website than users on mobile devices

Question for further analysis: Do users who come on mobile devices achieve worse results because the website has a poor user experience on mobile?

H1b: Is there a significant difference between visitors who came to the website through Facebook ads and visitors who came organically, through search engines?

Average values for users that came through Facebook and Google Search

With a statistical significance of 1%, both tests have determined the following:

Sessions: The results show that more people came from Facebook ads than from the search engine

Bounce Rate: Users who come from the search engines have far less probability of leaving the website after the first page (they have a lower Bounce Rate)

Pages per Session: Users coming from search engines, on average, visit more pages during their session than users coming from Facebook ads

Average Session Duration: Users coming from search engines are more likely to spend more time browsing the website

Through the data, we see that the visitors acquired organically, through search engines, are more valuable.

The explanation could be quite simple. Users who come from Facebook ads probably didn’t hear about the product and services before, at this point, are just getting to know the brand. On the other hand, people searching for Maxifit and XBody already know what they are looking for, so they are more likely to proceed to the next step — send an inquiry to the sales staff.

H1c: Is there a significant difference between new and returning visitors?

The idea here is to determine whether people who are returning to the website are there because they have the intention of converting.

Average values for new and returning visitors

With a statistical significance of 1%, both tests have determined the following:

Sessions: The data shows that there are statistically more new than returning visitors

Bounce Rate: The new users have a greater tendency of leaving the website after the landing page

Pages per Session: Returning visitors visit more pages during their session

Average Session Duration: Returning visitors spend more time on the website during their session

The results show that returning visitors show bigger indications for conversion.

H1d: Is there a significant difference between age groups?

In this case, due to the limitations of Google Analytics, we had only 272 samples. The age groups are separated in 18–24, 25–34, 35–44 and 45–54. Because of multiple groups, the tests used were ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis.

With a statistical significance of 1%, both tests have determined the following:

Sessions: The greatest number of sessions is made by the age group 25–34

Bounce Rate: Biggest Bounce Rate is for users aged 45–54

Pages per Session: Users aged 25–34 on average visit the most pages per session, while the age group 45–54 visits the least

Average Session Duration: Data and tests show users aged 25–34 stay browsing the website for the longest period of time

Percent of New Sessions: The greatest percentage of new users come from age group 18–24, and the least number of new users are aged 25–34

Based on the numbers, the visitors who are aged 25–34 show the highest conversion probability.

Questions for further research: Should we invest more money into targeting users aged 25–34 in the ads? Is the small number of new users in this age due to the fact that a lot of them already have visited the website, so they are considered returning visitors each time they come back?

Key findings

To make it really short — data that I have collected during a 12 month period shows that desktop users aged 25–34, who are acquired through search engines, who are not visiting the website for the first time have a greater value for the company I was working for because they show more signs that they are willing to send a business inquiry (make a conversion).

Even though the research findings might not be that shocking or groundbreaking for someone working in business, Marketing , or UX Design, the goal here was to prove some ideas about targeting users and to have statistical proof that I can later use to justify decisions at work.

Desktop users aged 25–34, who are organically acquired through search engines, and who are not visiting the website for the first time show behaviors that indicate conversions.

Recommendations

Here’s how these findings shaped my Digital Marketing work at my client’s company:

SEO supports the advertising efforts— After getting people interested in your product through ads, they might be browsing the web to investigate the product/service. Since the higher quality visitors are coming from search engines, the company has to work on making the website highly ranked for all important keywords.

Invest in retargeting — Visitors who come back to the website are more likely to convert, so invest efforts into exploring all possible retargeting options to bring them back to the website.

Understand the visitors aged 25–34 — Who are they? Why are they specifically interested in your product? How are they different from other age groups, what information are they looking for and how do they use this website to find information?

Focus on both mobile and desktop — It would be just too easy to say to go mobile-first in this case, but the right answer for me would be to make both experiences flawless. In my research, data did show that more new users come from mobile phones, but that more quality visits come from a desktop device. It might be that the first visit on the phone is important to leave the first impression so that they come back using a desktop device to find out more.

Before taking these recommendations for granted and investing great budgets into design, development, and advertising, I would advise comparing the business I was researching with your own, checking out Google Analytics , and seeing if the same patterns in data occur and doing additional testing on different user segments.

>This article was originally published on uxdesignc