By Pradeep Seshadri, Director, Solutions Consulting, India, New Relic
Digital businesses are operating in a competitive market landscape, and facing increasing pressure to drive results. With research revealing that total mobile web traffic has fallen by over 4% year-on-year, businesses need to capture the attention of consumers through optimising their technology adoption. Additionally, the biggest reason for customer disengagement is frustration. One study from Bain & Company revealed that out of the 200 million Indian digital users who shop online, 65% find app downloads frustrating, with 40% abandoning a purchase if they are pushed to install an app to complete it. When customers are frustrated, it can have adverse consequences. Digital experience monitoring (DEM) enables businesses to drive engagement and revenue, and operate efficiently to deliver superior digital customer experiences.
Real user monitoring for seamless experiences
A recent study by Portent found that websites with a 1-second loading time had 3x higher conversion rates compared to sites with 5-second loading times. The same study found that website conversion rates can drop to 34% if it takes two seconds to load. This makes it clear that organisations need the capacity to continuously monitor user experience. Real user monitoring allows businesses to continuously monitor user interactions across both web and mobile platforms, enabling teams to quickly identify performance bottlenecks and optimise user paths. By tracking and analysing detailed analytics, businesses can refine user journeys, significantly enhance user experience and boost conversion rates.
For example, AB InBev, one of the world’s largest beverage manufacturers, was able to see that customers were experiencing a delay of about eight seconds in the company’s pricing engine. Thanks to DEM providing real-time monitoring, the company made a strategic effort to bring down the delay to 100 milliseconds. The business was able to instantly improve the customer experience, resulting in more completed purchases.
Proactive issue detection
Whether fine-tuning website performance, streamlining application workflows, or addressing emerging issues, the data obtained from end-user experience metrics act as a blueprint for strategic improvements that resonate with user expectations.
Digital experience tools allow for synthetic monitoring, crash analysis, and error tracking, helping teams proactively detect potential issues before they impact users, which enables them to maintain a seamless digital experience while minimising downtime. Digital experience monitoring tools can also provide actionable insights, enabling teams to resolve problems swiftly and efficiently. This not only improves the user experience but also supports continuous operational excellence.
Teams can also visualise user sessions in a video-like format, providing an intuitive view of user interactions, so businesses know exactly how customers are using applications. This is essential for identifying issues down to the code level and provides a cost-effective method of capturing critical incidents; helping organisations save on storage and processing costs.
Integration and collaboration
As businesses grow, so do their digital assets. Ensuring that the solutions a business chooses are scalable enables teams to tackle increased complexities and user interactions without compromising on performance. Seamless integration with other tools and platforms within the organisational digital ecosystem is essential; ensuring a cohesive approach to monitoring and allowing for a more comprehensive analysis of the entire digital landscape.
The in-app collaboration created by digital experience monitoring capabilities provides a unified observability experience; combining data from the web, mobile, and backend sources. It offers a detailed view of digital experiences; enhancing decision-making and strategic planning. By fostering enhanced collaboration across cross-functional teams, it enables them to work together more efficiently with shared data and insights—something that is essential to optimising the end-user experience.
Customer satisfaction dictates the success or failure of a business, which is why understanding and optimising the digital journey is essential to ensuring consistent growth. When businesses prioritise end-user experiences, they are able to foster customer loyalty and satisfaction, while ensuring a competitive advantage. Digital experience monitoring can help businesses navigate shifting user expectations, and support them to adapt and provide exceptional digital experiences.