The Benefits of User Testing

As time and technology change, the professional services landscape becomes increasingly competitive. These days, professional services businesses need to go above and beyond to establish a well-thought-out online presence by providing seamless experiences and meeting client expectations. To hit the mark in your marketing strategy and continue to provide top-quality service to your existing clients, prospects and referrers, it is important to understand the audience you’re trying to reach and provide services to. User testing and usability testing is an often overlooked, yet powerful tool for improving user experience (UX).

Businesses are increasingly turning to user testing - according to a PwC pulse survey, 51% of CMOs said customer experience was a priority investment. Asking prospects and current clients what they really want to see from your marketing and services allows you to fine-tune your offerings, surpass their expectations and set you apart from your competition. Here is what user testing is and how it can benefit your professional services business.

What is User Experience?

UX is how people interact with and perceive a product, service, or system. Improving UX is improving a user’s overall experience when engaging with your brand, whether that be a website, mobile app, even down to customer service from your reception team. To do this, businesses need a deep understanding of the user’s priorities, pain points and overall satisfaction at every stage of their interaction, always looking for opportunities to iterate and improve.

For professional services businesses, your website is often the first thing a client or potential prospect will engage with. To create excellent website UX, you must create intuitive, efficient and trustworthy experiences tailored to your user's needs which will set your business apart from competitors, making your brand their obvious choice.

Why test your website?

Assumptions about your target audience’s needs can often lead to misaligned priorities and missed opportunities. For professional services businesses, if your website fails to quickly and concisely provide relevant information and showcase trustworthiness, it is unlikely to capture the attention of prospects.

We live in a time when prospects and clients are accustomed to instant gratification when looking for the information they need. With an industry average email click rate of 3.04%, ad click rate of 2.93%, and website engagement rate of 52.43%, it's becoming harder to compete for attention.

Without gaining valuable client insights through tailored user and usability testing, businesses risk overcomplicating processes, becoming complacent, overlooking any pain points and missing what are often very simple and obvious opportunities for improvement. Testing ensures that your website and further client interactions are functional, enjoyable, and efficient, which in turn increases the chances of conversions.

User Testing Vs Usability Testing

To improve UX, many companies look at both user testing and usability testing. Although similar, they have a couple of key differences. 

Usability Testing

The main goal of usability testing is to prove how user-friendly a platform, such as a website or app is. The process includes identifying pain points and actions for improvement. This usually involves observers watching participants find specific information on a website or complete a specific task on an app. The ease of which a user can navigate the platform can effectively be shown through a screen recording of the entire test.

User Testing

User Testing takes a more holistic approach, observing users’ first impressions of a website or app and how it makes the user feel throughout the user journey. User testing gauges the context in which a potential client may be using your site. Failing to consider this user context and role relationship when designing your website may act as a barrier to conversions – and missed opportunities to convert clicks into clients. User testing can be targeted to a particular audience (e.g. age, stage of life, geographic region, profession). Using carefully tailored and open-ended questions to gather a wider range of responses, the testing can then all be captured using real-time screen recordings.

A Combined Approach

Using a combination of user testing and usability testing provides objective, real-world feedback which may challenge what you already assume your clients, prospects and referrers want from your website, social media, communications and, ultimately, the services you provide. By collecting and analysing these valuable insights, professional services businesses can make informed decisions that will ultimately improve conversion rates, client satisfaction, and retention.

How Can I Test My Website? 

Once the format and testers are all set up, it is relatively straightforward to run and capture the testing. Once the results are available, businesses can begin to take action almost immediately after receiving clear, actionable feedback.

User testing and user testability sessions are usually conducted in 5–20-minute sessions, depending on the objectives of the testing. It is important that the right testers are chosen for the testing and vetted according to key criteria, ensuring that feedback is always relevant.

In the process, the carefully selected testers are shown the website and are asked to articulate first impressions on the overall design, imagery, availability of information, ease of navigation and layout.

Scenario-based questions

Next, the testers can be asked to complete a series of tasks based on a scenario.  For example: ‘imagine you are dealing with a sensitive family issue which you need legal advice on. You want to know what family related legal support this firm offers.’  This scenario prompts the user to use the website’s navigation to find a specific piece of information whilst giving verbal feedback on the user journey and overall UX design along the way.

Ordinal Scale Questions

Throughout the user and usability test could be several ordinal scale questions to provide clear insights into factors such as ease of navigation and trustworthiness. An example of this type of question might be ‘How difficult or easy was it to find information you needed about family law services on a scale of 1 – 5?’ 

Closed-Ended Questions

Adding closed-end questions helps gather a concise view of the website’s features and overall opinion. For example, ‘Would you use this site if you needed to – yes, no, maybe.’ 

Open-Ended Questions

Finally, adding open-ended questions into the mix allows the user to provide more granular details about their overall experience. An example of this could be ‘ what changes would you make to the website to make it easier to find information on family legal services?’ Here, the participant is free to give further commentary and opinions, providing keywords and points they have noted throughout the whole testing process.
User and usability testing not only provides insight into your own website but can be used to compare it to your competitors’ websites too. In a longer session, the above process can be replicated across various competitor sites, ultimately asking the testers which one they preferred and which one they would go on to engage with. 

Helping You Make the Most of User Testing

When it comes to knowing your client, no industry could benefit more from user testing than professional services. 

The benefits of user testing extend far beyond improving usability, it can help increase existing client satisfaction and retention. It’s a strategic investment, allowing professional service firms to gain a competitive advantage in an industry where every touch point and interaction matters.

We’re an award-winning specialist marketing and social media agency working with a range of professional services businesses including law firms, accountants, financial advisers and property professionals, to attract their ideal clients and drive leads.

Given our professional services industry experience and backgrounds, we understand our clients’ target audiences and the challenges they face, in turn we are in the best position to set up and deploy testing to unlock the full conversion potential of your website. 

Get in touch for a free consultation to see how user testing can help your business.  Complete our contact form, call 0333 050 6015 or email hello@calpartners.co.uk.