The Forgotten User
Over the years, I have heard a lot about the user experience, but what does that really mean? I often compare user experience to customer experience, which in some cases can be the same thing. However, in this case, I am specifically talking about enterprise software and the user as an individual that is using the software to accomplish their daily tasks, which often includes serving their customers.
Organizations dedicate a ton of effort and resources to creating a better experience for their customers. Look at retail stores. They have been forced to improve their customer experience in to compete with lower cost, online retailers that provide the convenience of shopping at home with quick delivery. Fast food chains are constantly improving their processes to increase speed, and they are adding self-serve kiosks to reduce wait times. Likewise, financial institutions dedicate a ton of money and energy towards branch transformation and building their digital banking offerings to improve customer service. Every industry and organization prioritizes the customer experience.
But what about the user experience or the employee’s experience with the tools provided to them? What about the teller that is performing transactions for a member or customer? What about the loan officer that is processing a loan for your member or customer? What about the MSR or CSR that is opening a new account for a prospective customer? Their experience tends to be overlooked, but it is so important.
Your team members use enterprise software every single day to help members and customers. The use systems like CORE, ECM, Loan Origination and CRM. To me, it seems like improving their experience with these systems would have a huge impact on the customer experience. If they complete their job more quickly with less errors, the customer service is greatly improved. Unfortunately, most organizations fall short when it comes to providing an optimized user experience for their employees.
There are many reasons that contribute to the lack of a good user experience. From an overall perspective, it is because organizations do not have a user experience specialist, which I define as a person that can bridge the gap between software and process. They have business analysts who understand their processes, but analysts rarely understand every aspect of the tools the employees are using. On the vendor side, software companies have specialists that know everything about the software, but do not understand all the process of their customers.
Historically, user experience specialists have not existed. There is not a user experience degree or programs that really focus on user experience. As colleges and universities churn out software developers, system integrators, and product managers, they have completely overlooked the user experience specialist.
Most software companies deal with user experience by talking to managers within their customer base or hiring them as consultants. Unfortunately, top-level managers rarely understand all the steps required by frontline employees to complete their work, and software companies rarely talk to the actual users. When is the last time your software vendor talked to the tellers or MSRs about how they use their software to do their job? When is the last time that your own organization talked to the end users? This is a huge problem because it contributes to massive inefficiencies and causes an organization to fall short on the return from their software investment.
Luckily, this issue is easily solved. The solution requires two elements: an understanding of the operational processes of the organization and full knowledge of the software. Combining process knowledge with product knowledge will allow your organization to enhance the user experience exponentially.
To understand your operational processes, you need to sit with the users, the front-line employees, to learn exactly what they do each day and why they do it. Observe them completing their work to see all the steps required in each task they complete, and ask questions about why they need to perform each step.
Understanding the full capabilities of your software and being able to implement it is more difficult and often costly. You can purchase additional trainings from the vendor, read product user manuals, participate in user groups, attend user conferences, and most importantly, experiment with the software. Another option is to hire an individual that already knows the software if you can find someone.
Unfortunately, both objectives require a lot of time, and most of your employees carry many responsibilities that do not allow them to focus so much energy on one specific product or process. Your best option is to partner with a company that specializes in the user experience of your system and understands your business. They can help leverage the full functionality of the software, identify processes that can be automated, and streamline tedious tasks for your employees. Their job is to know everything about the software and understand everything about your business. They will deliver a better user experience at a lower cost much more quickly than trying to tackle the job internally.
Improving your user’s experience will have a direct impact on your customer’s experience by allowing your team to serve your customers more quickly and efficiently. Your employees will be happier which will directly translate into better customer service and longer employee retention. It also affects your bottom line by eliminating unnecessary steps throughout your operational processes.
Your organization dedicates many resources to enterprise software through licensing, support, maintenance, hosting, etc, and your executive team is always looking to leverage your existing systems to provide additional efficiencies and better service. As you evaluate your strategic plans around your current solutions and look to optimize what you have in place, don’t forget the users!
