How to Use Micro-Interactions to Improve Website Experience

According to ThinkJar’s customer strategy research, 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for an upgraded experience.

As product owners, UI/UX designers, or marketers, we are all working to optimize the website experience and attract more customers.

But what defines a good experience? What should you improve? How can you measure the quality of user experiences?

If you have any of these questions floating in your mind, you are on the right track. In this article, you will get answers and learn about the best practices in creating, measuring, and evaluating digital experiences from leading companies.

What is a good customer experience?

“A good customer experience means that the individual’s experience during all points of contact matches the individual’s expectations.”
Wikipedia

Hubspot says, “The best way to define customer experience is as the impression you leave with your customer, resulting in how they think of your brand across every stage of the customer journey.” 

You can see both sources clearly define customer experience as a line, and not as a dot. Unlike a merchandise item, where customers buy it and their needs get directly fulfilled. Customer experience stretches from the discovery of your brand, browsing of your website, to making a purchase and using the product. Every content they read and every button they click, all accumulate and impact the experience.

Because customer experience is such a lengthy process, many companies find it daunting. Where do you start? What metrics do you use? How do you ask customers questions? And how do we analyze the feedback?

Feedback as the root of Experience Optimization

The first step you need to take is an obvious one, but sometimes difficult to initiate. Talk to your customers. 

While Google Analytics is undeniably invaluable for assessing website performance, metrics like bounce rate and time on the page can only reveal so much. Even with Google Analytics integration, it’s challenging to discern the satisfaction levels of your visitors. In GA, it is the same when a visitor lands on your homepage, dislikes the design, and leaves, versus a delighted visitor who is able to find all the right information on the single page and close it. 

You need to ask your customers for feedback to find out the reason. And our tip for you is “keep it simple”. 

Start the process with quick, easy, and intuitive rating feedback. Ask your website visitors to rate your homepage or react to your blog content. These micro-interactions are incredibly helpful in informing website and product owners about what the customers think. 

Examples of raters as below: 

The art of implementing micro-interactions

With micro-interactions, you can collect website experience feedback on specific pages and features. These insights will help you understand whether you are meeting customers’ expectations and whether your product needs improvement.

Micro-interaction is a simple and useful way to engage with customers. You don’t want to interrupt the customer experience or be a burden to your customers when asking for feedback. Micro-interaction is a non-intrusive way to achieve that. 

Microsoft’s study revealed that 77% of consumers view brands more favorably if they proactively invite and accept customer feedback. Usersnap’s website feedback tool will slide open more feedback options once your customers have interacted with the embedded rating.

The logic is simple: once customers give a rating, it implies they are interested in sharing their opinions. You should take the opportunity to ask a deeper question. This is when Usersnap’s feedback pop-up will slide open to display a personalized question in response to the rating. 

Unlocking qualitative feedback for more value

When measuring customer experience and the voice of customers, written feedback is crucial. With the customers’ choice of words, you can get a sense of their emotions and what is important to them. Then, you start to comprehend how they feel about the product and experience. 

However, it is difficult to grasp the big picture by looking at individual feedback. Usersnap shows a sentiment analysis in the dashboard of each collection of feedback. You can easily identify keywords and monitor the trends of your customers’ feedback. 

Qualitative feedback opens doors to “why” customers feel a certain way. The reasons can then help you figure out “what” you should act on. By understanding the problems in these written comments, you will have new ideas for product development. The feedback can also act as a confirmation of gut feeling and proof to exhibit to the stakeholders. On top of that, the information can be used to inspire new marketing campaigns. 

You can go even beyond written feedback. As websites and software become more visual-heavy, customers want to give feedback on graphical issues or give design suggestions as well. To meet such needs, you should employ on-screen annotation tools to assist the communication. One of the most loved features of Usersnap is feedback via screenshots and annotations. You can draw or drag arrows and comment in specific spots directly on the screen/browser. Overcoming the limitations of words.

Website experience feedback in action

Interspar. at, a hypermarket known for its quality goods, is collecting customer ratings and feedback with Usersnap on its e-commerce website. 

The products are sorted into 3 categories – food, household, and wine – so they also have 3 different projects set up to collect, track, and analyze feedback in each respective customer journey and experience. The feedback widget has been customized to fit the look and feel of the website and brand.

The initial purpose of implementing a website feedback widget was to open up an alternative communication channel with customers other than chatbox or email. Customers can be directed to the service line or submit a message with a screenshot via the widget. The feedback can conveniently be sent to other stakeholders and tools, enabling the e-commerce team to close the feedback loop and resolve the issues easily with customer service, shop managers, or IT departments. 

Interspar is looking to add more projects and ask for more specific questions from their online customers, such as NPS and features-focused feedback. Although they have been using Adobe Analytics and Hotjar to analyze customers’ website experience as well, the written qualitative feedback is most relevant and powerful.

You can’t deliver great experiences without customer feedback. 

Use customer feedback to stay competitive

“I believe customer feedback is the coiled spring that catapults your company forward. It will continually adjust your trajectory, while keeping you on target.”
Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn

70% of companies that deliver exceptional customer experience use customer feedback. There are many formats and ways to approach customer feedback collection, but what is undebatable is you need the input of your customers to succeed. 

The funny truth is that our customers realized this before us. Many features of Usersnap CX were built on demand by our enterprise customers. We listened carefully to their feedback, and we value their use cases. As the product matures, we are now opening Usersnap CX up for all of you to benefit. 

By the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator, stated Walker Info. You need to start listening to your customers today and learn and engage with them for the long-term success of your business. 

What’s Next?

Try Usersnap for free today. Create your feedback widget to collect ratings and rich visual feedback. Sign up for a unlimited free trial or get a personalized demo.