Tips for A Better Customer Experience Through Better Site and App Performance

Web development professionals have long considered page load speed as a valuable performance metric meant to reflect a positive online experience for a website visitor. Today’s consumers have adopted that consideration –  and so should your business.

Faster page load times will help ensure your fast-moving mobile customers are seeing a great offer instead of an annoyingly slow site, particularly when digital signage and mobile devices are involved.

Consumers increasingly use smartphones to complete personal tasks. For banking customers it means checking balances, reviewing transactions, or receive alerts while on the go.  Retail customers may be looking to take advantage of free shipping.  No matter the business type, customers expect sites and apps to load pages easily with a minimal of delay.

The banking industry offers a clear B2B example of the shift to mobile beyond just e-commerce and retail. According to a Forrester report on banking trends, US mobile banking adoption among consumers had grown rapidly, “more than doubling from 5% of online adults in 2007 to 12% in Q2 2010.” The report also had predicted that by 2015 one in five US adults will be using mobile banking.

Some nuances specific for financial service activity have indeed emerged.  According to an Adobe Mobile Consumer Survey, mobile users indicated page load speed to be a priority.  Among surveyed mobile users who use financial services, page navigation was the highest concern.

The activity highlights how essential yet subtle a role page load speed plays in campaign success. Marketers relying on mobile campaigns and digital signage must monitor page load as a performance indicator. The quality of page speed performance will eliminate a weakness if signage media or a remarketing paid search is meant to encourage customers to use your app and ultimately its services.

A few tips can make sure that the right page quality is being experienced. While there can be technical reasons for a slowly recalled page, the tips can be considered outside of a skill set of an IT team.

1. Identify the kinds of tablet and mobile devices used to arrive to the website. Many analytics solutions can reveal mobile devices models and OS visitors are using to arrive on tagged pages. Knowing what customers use can dictate design elements for landing pages and whether a native app versus an app would fit customers’ needs.

2. Audit the website and landing pages for potential hindrances – additional tags or business blog plugins can potentially increase the number of calls to a hosting server, increasing page load speed and deterring visitors from accomplishing tasks quickly.

3. Consider in-store signage campaigns (or online content) that demonstrate how to use mobile applications.  Providing a context for app usage so can help answer regularly occurring navigation questions regarding mobile applications and encourage more usage - this can drive analytic initiatives liked to the app and learn more insights for further refinements.

These tips focus on managing the digital campaigns across a number of touchpoints. Ultimately managing page load speed can be a great lead to closely knowing how on-the-go customers experience your services.