For the last several years it has been ‘beaten’ into the minds of marketers that it is absolutely critical to have a great mobile experience for visitors. This just makes sense given that so many people are using mobile browsing, and many of them using it exclusively. According to a new customer survey that was conducted by Vistaprint Digital, however, a good mobile experience might not be nearly as important as we have been told.
This is not to say, of course, that a good user experience on mobile isn’t important, or that it isn’t worth the effort. Let’s just be clear on that.
The survey looked at what types of problems users get most upset about, and are most likely to stop visiting a site over. The results found that a bad mobile experience was only mentioned by 17.8% of the respondents.
The worst thing that small businesses can do according to the survey? Have outdated or incorrect contact information. If your site doesn’t have correct address, direction, business hours, and phone number, 49.7% of people will consider that to be a cardinal sin. Having it missing from your site (or so hidden people can’t find it) is almost as bad, ranking in at 41.5%.
Other things that were ranked high include having no product information (34.3%), an unprofessional design and/or color scheme (26.2%), and having fonts that make it hard to read the text (23.7%). Several of those should really fall under the overall poor design answer, or so it seems. Those apply to both mobile and desktop experiences.
When the question was asked in a more positive way, asking what the most important thing is for a positive online experience, the users had very similar answers. Up to date information about name, address, phone, etc ranked the highest, by far, at 68.4%. A professional appearance was next at 27.7%, and a mobile friendly experience was third, with 21.5%.
So, while it is true that a good mobile experience is going to be important, it pales in comparison to keeping your company information up to date. If you ever make changes to business hours, phone numbers, product info, or anything else, see to it that it is updated on your website immediately, or you will undoubtedly lose customers.
