Reducing Friction: Empowering Smarter, Smoother Buying Journeys

Friction, anything that slows down or complicates the buyer’s journey, can occur at any point in the process and adds a layer of resistance that could turn a potential customer away.

Understanding Friction in the Buying Process

Identifying friction points is key to improving the customer experience and increasing conversions. Some of the most common ways friction appears in the buying process include:

• Confusing Navigation, which can be anything that gets in the way of the customer easily finding what they’re looking for. 94% of users designate easy website navigation as an essential component of their experience on your website, but many companies overlook this simple but critical factor.
• Complicated Checkout Process, which can be an overly drawn-out or overly complex checkout process, and makes about 22% of online shoppers abandon an order.
• Lack of Information, whether it’s product specifications, pricing, shipping details, etc., a lack of accessible important information can unintentionally stop a sale.
• Mismatched Marketing and Sales Messaging, which can create disconnect and confusion and reduce trust.

The above are some instances in which friction can occur in the buying process, but as a CMO, you’ll want to understand your customer’s specific friction points and remove those obstacles from their path.

Identifying and Evaluating Friction Points

Once you understand the concept of friction, it’s important to determine where it’s happening in your own customer’s buying process. This isn’t about guesswork; instead, it’s about using customer insights, data, and smart thinking to pinpoint the trouble spots.

In order to identify specific instances of friction for your customers and ultimately remove these obstacles from their path, there are several tools that CMOs can utilize, including:

Customer Journey Mapping

Having a clear and robust idea of your customer’s journey from the very first interaction to their final purchase is an effective way to uncover friction points. This visualization of every step your customers take can help you see where they might be running into roadblocks. For example: Is the checkout process too long or complicated? Is information consistent between marketing and the product pages? Journey maps can help you spot inconsistencies and see where friction might occur and how it could impact the customer’s overall experience.

Gather User Feedback

By regularly collecting customer feedback through surveys, reviews, or direct conversations, you gain valuable insight from the people who are experiencing the buyer’s process firsthand. For example, simple post-purchase or post-interaction surveys can reveal if there were any frustrations. You can also lean on your customer support teams to identify common complaints or obstacles that may point to an area of friction. Feedback helps to ensure that your customers have a good buying experience, which is particularly important considering 46% of consumers won’t buy from a business again if they had a poor buying experience the first time.

Behavioral Analytics and Heatmaps

Behavioral analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, or heatmap software, like Hotjar or Crazy Egg, can provide a behind-the-scenes look at how users are interacting with your site. Heatmaps, in particular, can show you how users interact with your website in real-time so you can see where users click, scroll, and linger and where people are getting confused, stuck, or leaving the site entirely. With these technologies, you can identify high bounce rates, which might indicate that users are not finding what they need, and click-through-rates, which could indicate unclear or unattractive calls-to-action (CTAs). Reducing friction on landing pages can increase conversion rates by up to 266%.

Monitor Key Metrics

Tracking metrics like cart abandonment rates, bounce rates, and conversion funnels can help pinpoint where in the buying process potential customers drop off. These points are often prime areas of friction. For example, if a significant number of users are leaving items in their cart without completing the purchase, it’s usually a clear sign that there’s friction in the checkout process. Or, if users are spending too much time on a particular page without taking action, it might suggest the content or navigation is unclear. In fact, reducing friction at checkout alone could recover 35.26% of abandoned carts, which indicates a huge opportunity to improve conversions just by identifying the right friction points.

Strategies to Reduce Friction

The ultimate goal is to create a buying process that feels effortless so customers don’t even hesitate to complete the purchase. When done right, reducing friction not only boots conversions but also enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty. Some actionable strategies include:

Simplifying Workflows

A complex workflow can bog down not just your customers but also your team. Streamlining internal processes helps ensure that everything runs smoothly from marketing to sales and makes it easier for customers to move through the funnel without unnecessary friction.

• Automate Routine Tasks in order to free up your team’s time while improving the customer experience. For example, automated emails that follow up with abandoned carts or deliver personalized product recommendations can nudge customers back into the buying process.
• Align Marketing and Sales. This is one of the most common friction points is a breakdown between marketing and sales messaging. Regular communication and shared goals between these two teams can create a unified experience that eliminates friction.
• Streamline Checkout, including simplifying the number of fields, offering a guest checkout, and ensuring clear error messaging, to avoid scaring away customers at the last minute.

Enhancing User Experience (UX)

The user experience can make or break the buying process. If your website is clunky or unattractive or confusing, you’re likely losing customers before they even reach checkout.

• Optimize for Mobile: More than 50% of web traffic now comes from mobile devices and 79% of people who don’t like what they find on one site will go back and search for another, so your site must be optimized for mobile devices by making buttons easy to click, forms simple to fill out, and navigation intuitive.
• Simplify Navigation: Make it as easy as possible for customers to find what they need. Here, you may want to consider tools like predictive search, which helps users quickly locate products, or breadcrumb navigation, so they know where they are on the site.
• Clear Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons to remove ambiguity. These buttons should be prominently placed and clearly labeled. Clear and direct CTAs can increase conversion rates by up to 32%.

Improving Information Accessibility

If customers have to dig through your website to find product details, pricing, or shipping information, you’re unnecessarily adding friction to the process. Customers want information easily and quickly.

• Place Key Information Upfront: Information like product description, pricing, shipping details, and return policies should be readily accessible. 56% of consumers abandon a purchase due to unexpected costs, so being transparent about all pricing and shipping fees can reduce friction.
• Remain Consistent Across Touchpoints: Inconsistent messaging across touchpoints can create confusion and friction. Consistency, whether on your website, in emails, or in customer support, builds trust and ensures that customers know what to expect.
• Leverage AI and Chatbots: These tools can help provide real-time support by answering questions and guiding customers through the buying process. Utilizing chatbots for instant answers can remove a significant amount of friction for customers, especially for those with immediate concerns. In fact, 64% of internet users say the best feature is their 24-hour availability.