Adapting to AI-Driven Expectations: Find the Gaps in Your User Experience

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Customer expectations for digital experiences have never been higher. Nearly 75% of customers want to be able to do anything online that they can do in-person or by phone. In addition, the rapid evolution of AI ushers in a new level of convenience and personalization, further transforming consumer habits and driving up expectations.

To remain competitive in today’s market, companies need to excel at identifying and addressing gaps that may exist in the digital experience they provide their customers. 

At FROM: Vision to Victory, we work with scores of major brands to investigate the details of their digital journey and offer solutions that drive substantial improvements in both customer satisfaction and business results.

One thing we have recognized over the years is that there are three different types of gaps that occur in digital experience. We have articulated them in the following model:

3 GAPS IN DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

The Customer Experience Execution Model defines three different realities: 

1. INTENT: The user experience we intended to create in our digital touchpoints;
2. EXPERIENCE: How these digital touchpoints truly function for customers; and 
3. EXPECTATION: What our customers or prospects expect the digital experience to be.

For example, a brand may have designed their online shopping cart to add items and calculate totals seamlessly (#1), but for some reason, certain product types cause items to disappear or prices to display incorrectly (#2).

In the checkout process, the flow may be exactly as the brand envisioned and outlined (#1), but customers may be expecting features that weren’t part of the intended experience, such as one-click ordering or guest checkout (#3).

The distances between these three "realities" are the gaps to look for when creating digital experiences.

SATISFACTION GAP

The gap between the EXPERIENCE we have created and the customers’ EXPECTATION is called the SATISFACTION GAP. 

For example, if customers expect highly personalized and creative text responses from a brand’s chatbot (because they've interacted with AI tools like ChatGPT) and it can only provide basic, scripted answers, this can create a SATISFACTION GAP.

Delivering below the customers’ expectations will impact their satisfaction and ultimately, their conversion and loyalty. 

EXECUTION GAP

The gap between our INTENT and the actual user EXPERIENCE is called the EXECUTION GAP. 

Somewhere in the design or development process, there were errors and miscalculations, leading to an end result that doesn’t align with our intentions. 

For example, a company might intend to roll out an AI-powered image tagging feature to automatically categorize product photos, but it ends up misidentifying items, adding incorrect tags, or struggling with more nuanced product variations. This could be due to insufficient training data or improper integration with other systems. 

Execution failures can make customers feel confused and frustrated, and may ultimately cause them to lose trust in a brand’s ability to deliver.

INSIGHT GAP

Lastly, the gap between the customers’ EXPECTATION and our INTENT for the experience is what we call the INSIGHT GAP. This gap exists when the digital channel performance is just as we intended, but the customers aren't happy with it. 

For example, a content platform that aims to deliver a personalized experience will curate a highly customized recommendation feed, providing users with articles, videos, and content tailored to their interests. However, customers might eventually feel that their feed is becoming too narrow, lacking diversity and fresh options. It's doing exactly what the creators intended, but customers still aren't happy.

Presumably, brands don’t seek to under-deliver on customer expectations. Most of the time, the INSIGHT gap is a result of failure to fully understand and keep up with evolving customer needs and preferences. 

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

Very often, when we analyze a client's digital channels, all three types of gaps are present. Therefore, it is critical to understand what issues relate to which underlying gaps.

Generally, the SATISFACTION gaps are the result of one or both of the other two gaps. In other words, the reason a digital experience is not satisfying customers is either because the company doesn’t understand what their customers want, or they do understand but they haven’t been able to execute it well.

Where there are EXECUTION gaps, the next step is to get into the details of the problem—what is holding you back? Common issues include:

• Legacy technology that doesn’t give you sufficient flexibility;
• Corporate policies that don't allow you to fully satisfy customer needs;
• Organizational silos that prevent you from connecting parts of the experience in ways you know you should; and
• Lack of sufficient funding to build a fully competitive experience.

Solving these problems is not always easy. When we work with clients, the first step is to get clear on the connection between the SATISFACTION gaps, how they map to EXECUTION gaps, and what the specific problems are. Armed with that information, we can work with you and your teams to start building the case for change.

Where you have INSIGHT gaps, the solution is generally customer research. Our process involves clearly defining the different customer segments that make up your audience, leveraging existing research and conducting new studies including surveys, interviews, and observational research to get inside their heads and understand their needs. 

We combine AI-powered data analysis with deep customer insights to create a complete picture of your current digital experience, enabling us to identify key pain points and areas for improvement. 

Of course, getting this level of clarity alone doesn’t solve the gaps, but in our experience, getting clarity on what problems map back to which underlying issues is half the battle.

Are hidden gaps damaging your user experience? We can help.

Book a meeting with our team today

YOUR TURN

What tools do you use to identify and bridge the gaps in your digital user experience?

Share it in the comments below! SUBSCRIBE to DX Weekly for more content each week to help you and your company succeed in the digital world.

Howard Tiersky is the founder of FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency where he works with leading brands on digital transformation.

• Check out his Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance.
• Howard did a podcast episode with the SVP of Direct to Consumer Business at Highlights for Children, David Gitow, where they talked about how digital has affected the publishing industry and shares his observations about consumers’ on-demand needs. Listen to the episode here.
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