The ROI of Improving the UX of Product Information Management
Improving the user experience of your PIM system will have a positive impact on your work output, data quality and business processes. Your users will be more productive and as a result, your customers get an improved experience. You can follow a 5-step approach to start improving the UX. However, addressing the user experience early on in any software project will impact your total budget. The first question to answer is: ‘will be worth it financially?’
Calculating the ROI f your UX improvements will show you it’s not only about creating a great user experience. It’s also a smart business move. When measured correctly, the impact of investing in user experience can be directly linked to the bottom line. The Return on Investment of is determined by:
The benefits are mainly of the cost-saving kind. Those savings can be quite substantial, since PIM systems usually store thousands of products with dozens of daily users. There are multiple benefits that can be calculated to justify improving the user experience of working with a PIM system:
- Less effort needed to refrain customers from going to the competitor to get accurate product information;
- A decrease in calls to the customer service because of unclear or missing product specifications;
- Increased productivity of the data managers;
- More leads because marketing has better material to base their case on.
And by no means is this an exhaustive list.
An example of the calculation of the benefits that come from the reduction of errors:
Consider the case that the design approach of the PIM system would reduce the number of mistakes that each data manager makes. Let’s assume that with our design we will prevent a single mistake per day:
Including a UX phase at the start of a PIM implementation will cost a single outlay of €40.000.
On average the lifespan of a PIM solution is 5 years, before it’s replaced by a new system.
Now we can start calculating the ROI:
Calculating the cost savings of UX for PIM will make the business impact evident. This will make addressing the user experience a business imperative, and allow you to take the right approach from the start.
Putting the user in a central position has a positive ROI. When the time comes to trade in Excel for a robust PIM system, be sure to take control of the user experience of the system. This will make your employees who will work with the system more efficient and involved. And even better: your customers will get the product information they expect and need.
About the Author believes work doesn’t have to be painful. He’s an advocate of ensuring business users get a good user experience too, whether it’s work applications or B2B e-commerce.
This article is part of a mini-series:
Part 1: The UX of Product Information Management is still there if you missed it
Part 2: The ROI of Improving the User Experience of Product Information Management
