What are dialogue trees? How will you increase conversion on your website thanks to them?
In this article, I will tell you about 4 simple techniques that will make it easier for customers to navigate your website. I will explain why they are crucial for effective conversion of your website. I will show you how the use of dialogue trees in combination with the techniques presented in this article can work wonders for your business.
What is the conversion rate?
Conversion rate can be defined as the percentage of visitors to your site who meet the goal desired by the site owner. The high conversion rate shows us that all the activities related to the proper design of the website have produced good results.
There are many methods of increasing conversion, I will tell you about 4 which work best in our projects.
- Elimination of the Paradox of Choice - more products on the page does not always mean better
- Hicks Hyman's Law
- K.I.S.S - the site must be easy and simple
- Use of dialogue trees
The paradox of choice - more products on the site does not always mean better
The paradox of choice is the observation that having multiple options to choose from, rather than making people happy and giving them what they want, can cause them stress and decision making issues.
There is a conviction among the owners of online stores that the more they have in their store, the more choice their customers will have and they will certainly find something for themselves. Nothing could be more wrong. A huge selection of similar products may cause the customer to give up the purchase because he will not be able to make up his mind. The selection process with a large number of products is often lengthy and frustrating, which also leads to abandonment of purchases.
Imagine you are in a restaurant with 40 dishes to choose from. All of them will fulfill their purpose, they will make you get rid of the feeling of hunger. You choose one dish from the list and wait for the food to be made. You get the dish, you eat it and you are not entirely satisfied. It was good, but it wasn't delicious. The thoughts come to my mind: there were 40 dishes there, I could try harder when choosing a dish. Maybe then it would be more delicious. Instead of enjoying the fact that we got rid of the hunger and ate, we begin to regret our decisions. Which is problematic because it takes away your complete satisfaction from eating.
If we have one choice and something goes wrong, we blame the whole world for it, but if we have many options to choose from and we are not entirely satisfied with one of the options, we will only blame ourselves because we could have chosen better. We can apply the same assumption in many branches of business. The more options we give our clients the worse. Not only will it extend the purchasing process, but it may also make the customer choose indefinitely, or not buy anything at all.
Therefore, in your online store, if you have a large number of products, sort them and divide them into appropriate categories so that the customer is not overwhelmed with a hundred similar products on the site. Thanks to this, you will shorten its decision-making process and achieve better sales results. Often less is more..
Hicks Hyman's Law is very similar to the choice paradox. Named after 2 professors of psychology: William Edmund Hick and Ray Hyman. This law is a psychological principle which says that the more options a buyer has, the longer it will be to choose the best option. This law only applies to simple decisions. Eg choosing pasta on a store shelf.
The aforementioned psychologists conducted a study in which they used several types of jam jars. On both sides of the store, they put up shelves with jams on display. One had 6 jars of different flavors, while the other had 24 types of jam. The experiment showed that customers more often chose jam from the shelf with 6 products. When asked why they did, they replied that on the 24 flavor shelf they had too many choices which made it difficult for them to choose.
Hicks-Hyman Law is often used in web design. This is especially important when creating the website navigation menu or the offer page. You have to be careful not to scare the client by making him search for what he is looking for for a long time.
As Unlimitree, when creating a website for the client, we try to limit the available options, if possible. However, if the specificity of the client requires showing many products, we always plan to categorize them to make it as easy as possible for the client to find what he is looking for.
K.I.S.S rule (Keep it simple stupid)
This rule says literally "make it stupidly simple." This rule is mainly attributed to an American engineer named Kelly Johnson. The ease of use of the devices was of utmost importance to him. So one day he gave his subordinates some tools available in each garage and had them build a jet engine. This engine was supposed to be simple enough for any mechanic to repair it with the simplest, everywhere available tools in all conditions.
This rule is extremely important when designing websites. Our highest priority is to use the most simple solutions. Thanks to this, our client will find what he needs faster, because he will not have to think about searching our website for too long. Moreover, the easier the solution, the easier it is to implement and possibly modify it.
Remember that it is often better to include less information than to bore our customers with long descriptions. The customer is important and we do not want to alienate them from our website.
Dialogue trees, previously used only in computer games, in conversations between the player and the NPC (a character controlled by the program). The player chose how the conversation would go. Each chosen answer led to the rest of the conversation and produced different results. In fact, the game developers choose the direction of the conversation for the player, while the player decides how the conversation ends. In the same way as game developers guide their players to play the game, you can guide the customer through the purchasing process.
Since the customer has come to your store, it means that he has already been interested in something, now you only have to sell him this "something". The dialogue tree is to shorten the customer's decision-making process.
Dialog trees are an ideal way to guide the customer through the purchasing process for products whose final price depends on many factors.
Regardless of what you think about dialogue trees, you need to know that they work great. Dialogue trees help present the client with the right amount of information in small, easy-to-scan, prepared sections..
Based on the Hicks Law and the previously described paradox of choice, try to keep your customer's purchasing process short, and keep all the information the customer needs to make a decision is easily accessible and visible. Apply the K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid) methodology
Assuming that less is more, we assume that the entire process should not exceed 4-5 steps.
No matter how you arrange the process, it needs to be tested and improved. Therefore, the perfect combination is a dialogue tree and an analysis of customer behavior on your website or in your e-commerce. You need to explore the optimal number of choices your client has. Often less is more in this case! Such an analysis can be performed manually using tools such as Google analytics. The only drawback is that it is another tool that needs to be learned. You should know what data to look for. Learning a new program is another expense of your precious time.
When creating your website or e-commerce and relying on the dialogue tree, you need to remember one more very important thing. WE SELL ONLINE. This means that we need to have enough information on the website for the customer to make a purchasing decision. After all, there is no real salesperson who will answer the customer's question in real time. Anyway, if the client has to ask, it means that we are doing something wrong. Another thing is the use of eye-catching graphics and product photos. In a stationary store, the customer can touch the product, feel it in their hands, see what it really looks like. However, when shopping online, he can only imagine it. Your role in this is to multiply these feelings!
I know I have overwhelmed you with a lot of information, but remember:
- Think carefully about the customer's purchasing path
- Use the dialogue tree
- Reduce the number of displayed options for customers with purchase intent
- If you think the site is heavy and has too much content, it is
- When preparing your website or e-commerce, remember to: Eliminate the Paradox of Choice
- Keep it simple, the easier the site is to use, the better, rely on the K.I.S.S.
- Remember, it's not about innovation anymore, it's about making processes easier.
I am glad that you managed to reach this place, it means that you are an entrepreneur who has his own e-commerce and wants to improve the sales results.
Now you have to make a decision and consider whether the dialogue tree will help you in your business.
At UNLIMITRE, we specialize in creating perfect shopping paths for the customer. If you are interested in our services, please contact us!