Patience: In Short Supply in an Age of Digital Surplus

April 7, 2020

Humans are impatient, here-and-now creatures. CFOTech explains that patience is now a lost virtue in the article, “How Impatience Drives Our Digital Behaviour.” According to the article, Google research shows that 53% of mobile users leave a page if it doesn’t load in three-seconds or less. There is also research that dates back to 2012 from Microsoft that states if one Web site loads slower than another, people will avoid returning. Speed means revenue.

Want some facts about online shopping? Once consumers place something in their online shopping carts, they usually have second thoughts in twenty-two seconds. Even more interesting is that if the digital checkout process takes longer than half a minute, consumers are likely to cancel the transaction. Consumers want a speedy checkout and if their credit cards are not verified in ten-seconds, the sale disappears.

What is the impact of this? There are two reasons:

“First, it is a tangible illustration of how revenue is tied to the speed of your services. This is only going to become more critical as digital channels account for a larger portion of an organisation’s sales. According to Gartner, 37% of enterprise sales will be conducted through digital sales and digital channels by 2020. Similarly, a recent survey by McKinsey shows that on average, 35% of a company’s revenues worldwide are digitised.

Second, it shows a challenge that many of us are becoming more familiar with or exposed to.

It is now common for a single app to call upon a range of third-party services in order to complete a transaction. These microservices add slowness to many Web pages. Want to see microservices in action? Check out the British tabloids online. How do you ensure elements that you do not own or host are performing as expected and not introducing delays that have material flow-on impacts to your own app’s user experience (and the revenue you draw from that)?”

The operational idea is that you own your customer’s digital experience, but not the services that the experience runs on. The reality is that people with jobs in online want to stay employed, not deliver a service that works. Check out the latest version of Newsnow.co.uk on your mobile device. The ads make scanning headlines a chore, not a learning experience. I take that back. I have learned to go to Newslookup.com.

The thirst for ad dollars frustrates many who want a Web site that works smoothly. I know I do.

Whitney Grace, April 7, 2020

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