Organisations think they know everything about their website visitors. They can see where someone clicks, how long a page is viewed and at what point someone drops off. But why a visitor drops off? That usually remains guesswork.
Say someone spends several minutes on a pricing page and then leaves. Why didn't they buy anything? Was the price too high? Was the offer unclear? Was some information missing? Web analytics can't tell you.
That is why organisations ask visitors for feedback. Until now, with a short questionnaire. Good for spotting trends, but beyond that it yields hardly any relevant insight. That is a missed opportunity.
In traditional customer research we have long known that a good conversation yields far more than a series of closed questions. A researcher asks follow-up questions. Why did you find this unclear? What were you trying to do? What did you expect to find here? It is precisely in those answers that problems and needs come to light that perhaps nobody had thought of beforehand.
So why should we approach website research any differently?
In fact, website visitors are exactly the people worth talking to. At that moment they are right in the middle of the experience you want to understand. Their expectations, doubts or frustrations are fresh.
That is the thinking behind ScoreStory, which makes it easy to invite visitors to take part in research straight from a website. With a simple button or tab, visitors can share their experience, and organisations can look beyond a score alone.
That doesn't make analytics redundant. Data show what happens. A good conversation helps you understand why. And that is exactly what you need to make a website genuinely better.