To manage experience, organizations must be able to (1) measure end-user experience, (2) analyze and visualize the data in order to derive insights, (3) troubleshoot issues, and (4) remediate or correct when needed, ideally with automation.
Measure: to effectively measure end-user experience, an organization should have the ability to capture both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative is normally data collected by systems like:
- Endpoint management tools that capture data such as device health. For example, how much memory capacity is left on the device or what is the battery life status which can impact user experience.
- Application performance monitoring (APM) tools that capture app crashes, hangs, errors, etc. For example, have the ability to measure how long does it take to perform a single task. These tools also often track how users navigate an app and provide more information around user experience while in the app, such as how easy it is to checkout or identify where users typically drop.
- Network monitoring tools track the availability, health, and performance of networks. There are many protocols for network monitoring that look at different aspects of network traffic
In addition to quantitative data, organizations who want to manage experience also need to capture qualitative data to better understand the end-user sentiment and capture issues that might not come up otherwise. There are many surveying tools in the market to capture this data.
Analyze and Visualize: once the data is collected, organizations need a way to analyze and visualize the data, normally this is done through dashboards and reports. Some tools use machine learning models to provide additional, more advanced insights such as experience scores, or identifying when a KPI is outside a normal range. This enables organizations to get visibility into their environment and make data-driven decisions.
Troubleshoot: in case of an issue, organizations should proactively troubleshoot to find the root cause of the issue. In many cases, this is done manually which can be extremely time-consuming and often requires the end-user to be involved in this process. In many cases the amount of data is overwhelming and a more guided approach based on past experience can be useful, for example, in a case where the same issue has happened in the past with another user. Additionally, providing admins with more data in context to the issue at hand can speed up root cause analysis.
Remediation: once a root cause of an issue has been identified, the organization would want to fix it. In some cases, the issue can be solved by the user without intervention from the company, for example, password reset. Ideally, organizations would want to leverage automation and self-service workflows as much as possible to cut down costs and improve the overall experience.
Organizations that are more advanced in their experience management journey would want to transition from reactive issue detection to a more proactive approach where they can identify issues before the end-user notices or their experience is impacted. Additionally, advanced organizations would provide end users with self-service options, providing more flexibility and reducing costs at the same time.
[1] The Modern Employee Experience: Increasing the Returns on Employee Experience Investments, Gartner, 2020
