UserTesting is a company that gives organizations a way to gather insights and feedback on their digital products and experiences by getting customers to test them–from concept to execution.
UserTesting's former Director of Systems Integrators and Strategic Partners Hilary de Rover sat down with us to talk about the company's partnership with Contentsquare, the use of analytics in risk management, and how businesses can use analytics platforms to mitigate potential risks.
How does UserTesting and Contentsquare complement each other?
Hilary de Rover: UserTesting joins forces with Contentsquare as a technology partner, offering organizations the solutions they need to design superior digital experiences. By jointly analyzing the behavioral patterns of an organization's digital journeys, we provide insights into the 'why' behind specific behaviors and quantify their impact.
The Contentsquare-UserTesting partnership allows organizations to access both qualitative and quantitative data, paving the way for customer-centric decisions that enhance engagement across digital platforms.
For companies crafting digital experiences, an assortment of technologies and workflows are used to collect and analyze customer data across usability, performance, and engagement. This process equips product and marketing teams with insights into the ongoing activities across their digital channels. The challenge, however, lies in discerning why certain behaviors are occurring.
By marrying behavioral analytics with experience research and insights, organizations can delve into the 'why' behind the 'what' and helping them to see the problem from their customers' perspective. This further empowers organizations to build and optimize digital products and experiences in line with customer needs and behaviors.
How has the use of analytics in risk management evolved over the years, and what do you see as the future?
HR: Over the years, the use of analytics in risk management has significantly evolved. Traditionally, analytics were leveraged for post-launch objectives; once products and experiences were already live. Today, organizations are capturing human insight and using customer analytics throughout their design and development processes—from concept ideation to execution.
The spotlight is now shifting towards a more customer-centric approach, where experience research and insights play an essential role from the initial stages of discovery and design. This shift allows organizations to build products and experiences with greater confidence—knowing they have been vetted and tested by their customers prior to launch.
Looking ahead, I envision a future where qualitative and quantitative data seamlessly converge—operationalized across team workflows—creating a more scalable and efficient way to bring customer behavior and sentiment into the process for how organizations design, create, and deploy new products and experiences.
This collaboration of insights will enable organizations to not only identify and meet their target audience's needs more precisely, but also mitigate risks more effectively, leading to more resilient business models and higher customer satisfaction.
How do analytics platforms help businesses identify potential risks and threats to their organizations?
HR: Digital product organizations are at the forefront of creating digital interfaces such as websites, apps, and chat platforms, all of which is integral for driving revenue and business growth. With an increase in digital services in our day-to-day lives, businesses face escalating customer demands for more digitally accessible products and services. This puts teams on a fast track of designing, building, and iterating products and experiences, striving to stay ahead of the competition.
However, this push toward digital proliferation often coincides with a challenge: the need to accomplish more with less. This pressure can strain budgets and resources, and lead to the development of processes that may lack timely customer insights.
The solution lies in the power of human insights and analytics. Continuous testing and validation of your digital products with customers enables customer-facing teams like UX research, design, and product to readily capture direct consumer feedback throughout the product development lifecycle.
This practice helps mitigate potential risks in the design and development process and drives success through a shared understanding of the customer. In essence, customer insights become the cornerstone of identifying potential risks and threats to operations, ensuring businesses stay agile and customer-centric in their decision-making process.
What are some potential challenges or limitations that businesses should be aware of when it comes to using analytics for risk management?
HR: When deploying analytics for risk management, businesses should be aware of several potential challenges or limitations. Product teams often make key decisions at crucial stages of development without sufficient customer input. The fundamental question that arises is: can the existing information be leveraged to reduce risk in decision-making or mitigate the chance of developing misaligned features or experiences? Timing plays a critical role. Is the moment right for introducing a particular feature? Misguided timing could potentially waste resources or lead to a missed opportunity.
The key to overcoming these challenges lies in the continuous integration of customer insights into the decision-making process. This practice helps to bridge the empathy gap between an organization's perceived customer needs and the actual expectations of the target audience. By doing so, businesses can make better-informed decisions, aligning more closely with customer requirements and expectations, and subsequently mitigating potential risks in product development and strategy implementation.
Finally, what's a customer experience principle you strongly believe in?
HR: My commitment lies in creating a customer experience where not only are the customers' needs fulfilled, they're exceeded upon. This comes through offering a seamless, frictionless, and personalized journey across all channels and touchpoints.
It's thinking ahead about what's needed next. Asking, how can we simplify the journey? How can we be more prescriptive? Doing this requires a deep understanding of your customers, and building muscle for customer intuition.
A positive customer experience leads to loyalty and can be transformative for an organization, organically creating brand ambassadors who proactively advocate for your company and/or product. This, I believe, is the pinnacle of customer experience that's worth dedication.
How to become a Contentsquare partner
UserTesting is just one of over 100 trusted technology and service providers who make up our partner ecosystem.
We work closely with:
Solutions partners, who deliver strategy, design, implementation, consulting, and integration services leveraging Contentsquare
Technology partners, who provide technology and products that integrate with Contentsquare to deliver an end-to-end customer experience (CX) solution
Business partners , who act as trusted advisors and help to identify the best martech stack for the biggest brands
Partners are vital to our mission of bringing digital experience analytics to brands that will help them accelerate their digital goals. Think we could work together? You might be onto something.
This could be the start of a beautiful partnership. So get in touch.
