User Engagement was Low on These Websites. See How They Changed That.

I’ve seen plenty of websites that are beautifully designed and portray a strong sense of professionalism.
And that’s great. But it’s not enough.
Many businesses are missing out on a crucial opportunity to get their visitors to actually engage with their website. Think about it. If you can get your visitors to actually do something while on your site and engage them, there’s a greater chance that you’re going to push them through the funnel.

Case Study: Increasing Homepage Engagement

Here’s a brilliant example.  Take a look at the Super Fast Funding website.
This is their original page. There was not a lot of opportunity for visitors to engage upon landing on the home page.

The picture on the right hand side doesn’t tell us much. It’s nearly impossible to decipher or read the text on documents at which our friendly smiley faced cartoon is pointing.
There are also several other things going wrong here.
The main headline asks “Are you fundable?” There are two possible answers to that question: yes or no.

Don’t ever ask your visitors a question that could be answered negatively with a “No” response.

Don’t ever ask your visitors a question that could be answered negatively with a “No” response. It creates doubt and in their minds, could immediately disqualify them from further engagement with your site.
Instead, give them hope like in this new version of their home page. Kudos to this new design. Super Fast Funding has added several elements to dramatically increase visitor engagement.

They’ve preceded their phone number with the verbage “Questions?”. They’ve added a video rather than just an “Our Video” link in the main menu bar since many people opt out of watching a video if there isn’t a propelling thumbnail to get them interested.
A Live Chat link has been added at the very top of the page. A blog has been added. And they’ve also added a “Get Started” button.
Now that’s engagement.
But what I really liked about this page is the slider bar that they’ve added that allows visitors to choose the amount of funding that they’d like to receive.
Not only did they eliminate the possibility of a “No” answer, but they’ve made the experience very interactive for their visitors (while also giving them a sense of control), and by doing so, they’ve dramatically increased visitor engagement.
Do you see now why amping up the opportunities for visitor engagement is important to increasing sales, revenue, customer acquisition and a larger portion of the market share?  A website provides far greater opportunity for engagement over other marketing collateral mediums. It’s a shame if you don’t take advantage of that.

Case Study: Screen Sharing for Easier Engagement

LiveLOOK – which was acquired by Oracle last year – has added a bit of brilliance in how they’re tackling online customer service issues:  their solution makes it possible for merchants to assist their online shoppers through screen sharing.
Have you ever been in a brick and mortar store where a clerk has had to help you step by step with a transaction? I experienced it recently when a clerk had to help me through a scanning system that I had no clue how to operate. Had he not been there to help me, there would have been no transaction.
Screen sharing, in essence, does the same thing. When your visitors are completely stumped, merchants can get onto the shoppers’ screen and take actions for the visitor to assist them in the transaction.
One of the nation’s leading health insurance organizations utilized LiveLOOK’s co­-browse solution to improve upon customer service issues, and it helped guide visitors through a variety of online processes including registering, paying bills online and finding more information.  The most immediate result was the drastic reduction in call handling times. Calls that previously took up to an hour were reduced to 7­-10 minutes on average.
That 85% reduction in call times created a savings in resources and compensation for those resources.  Call center agents have also reported less visitor frustration which helps them to generate loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Tools to Increase User Engagement

Don’t forget, there are other ways to engage visitors and – just as importantly – ways to track that engagement.
HotJar is a company that has made it really easy to track engagement by offering multiple tools in one bundled solution. Not only do they offer the engagement tools, but the solution also offers tools to track visitor engagement.
In a brick and mortar store, clerks are face to face with shoppers, so if they’re smart, they can communicate directly with those shoppers to help them through the buying process.
It’s vital that you do the same with your online store. The HotJar bundled solution includes:

• Surveys
• Exit Polls
• Heat Mapping
• Visitor Playback Sessions
• User Tester Recruitment
• Form & Funnel Analysis

There are other options for click tracking, session recordings, and heat maps that you can read about at MyConversionLab.com.

Surveys

In an effort to find out how knowledgeable users were on tech terms, a survey conducted by Vouchercloud.net revealed that 27% thought a “gigabyte” was an insect found in South America, 23% believed that an “MP3” was a Star Wars robot and 18% thought that a “Blu­-ray” was a marine animal.  According to the Harvard University’s 2014 Senior Survey, 13.17% of Harvard seniors admitted to cheating during their tenure at the school.
Who would have known unless the questions were asked?
Surveys are another way to obtain valuable feedback from your visitors. You can ask your visitors all of the questions you’d like to ask if you were face to face.  When you’re putting together a survey, be sure to ask open ended questions that will provide you with more information rather than yes/no questions.