Jordan Callum Brown, Head of Digital at Safestyle, one of the UK’s leading manufacturer and installer of replacement windows and doors, talks to Paul Blunden about a recent project.
Paul Blunden: Hello, Jordan, thanks for speaking with me today. I know we’ve known each other a while, but for the benefit of people watching. Could you give yourself an introduction, please?
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: And so my name’s Jordan Brown. I am the head of digital Marketing in the UK and Safestyle are the UK’s number one window and door and seller and manufacturer.
Paul Blunden: fantastic. And we’ve worked on a number of engagements. But what problems were you trying to solve with the with the last one we did for you.
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: So we’ve worked with you and your team for a number of times, and this most recent one was and update our website. We’re going through a new website launch and we really want to understand more about the customer. SafeStyle receives, you know, thousands of visits to our website each day but you never really get a chance to sit down with a customer or a prospective customer, and really understand about what they want.
You can look at data as much as you want, and you can look after your companies like conversion rates and bounce rates. But to actually understand the customer’s journey is really important to us, and to understand how they perceive us as a brand and how our website matches up to their thoughts and alignments.
So for us, we were going for a new website, and we had put to give us some 10 points we put together, you know, some our first initial designs, and we wanted some feedback right from the start rather than pushing it right to an A/B testing tool. So we wanted to kind of really speak to the customer before we’d started the a. B testing and invested more into it.
Paul Blunden: Gotcha. Okay, makes perfect sense. And obviously you asked UX24/7 to run it. Why was that?
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: we’ve worked with you guys in the past, and we liked how you guys were set up. We had a good experience from you guys in the past, and the research that you provided before had been used extensively for the last number of years.
So we’d taken our our website as far as we could, using your research, and we wanted to obviously have a complete new fresh work. And we found that the collaboration between UX24/7 and ourselves was working really well, and you seem to understand that our business and our brand and what we stand for.
Paul Blunden: And with this piece of research, how did it go? What were the sort of key takeaways for you.
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: It went really well, it was all good for us. And there’s a few research there a few points that we’ve worked out from it. And we’re a window and door company. So we a Home Improvement Company. So it is really interesting to see different people with opinions on on. You know how a brand on a website should work, and what they perceive this certain pages, what about, and how easy it was for them to find the information that they needed. So I think this project won’t really well.
Paul Blunden: And how do you think the research will help Safestyle achieve its business goals?
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: So for us, this was all about the start of the research phase for this new website. We were planning AB testing to test everything on the new side. But we wanted to sit down and get a customer understanding before we even started, that AB testing, so we wouldn’t understand whether that was worth investing in in for, for, say, on a certain page and whether they understood the change you were making. And it just enabled us to have a more thorough understanding of each of how a customer perceived our new site and our business.
Paul Blunden: Right? Yeah, really yeah, interesting. And what do you think the most valuable aspect of working with UX24/7 is?
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: I think, to be fair UX24/7 turned the project around really quickly. I think you guys turned it around in under a month which is really impressive.
You were able to find the right kind of customer for us group to find our audience who understood our audience and you really understood the demographic of what a Safestyle customer is. So it was. It was great to hear from people to, and so far the you guys pointing together an audience was really it was pretty impressive. And how quickly you turned that around.
And then how you guys pose the questions to it. It really showed that you understood our business and you understood what our website was about, and what digital goals are about as well?
Paul Blunden: That is terrific and great to hear. Thank you. And finally, what would you say to anybody considering doing ux research for the first time.
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: I think it’s so important. I think these days most digital marketers will use data, and they will be data-driven and that’s really important is really important to constantly check on things like conversion rates.
But actually I think it’s very important to sit down with the customer and to understand how a customer feels. And I don’t think you can get that from data at times. I think data can only show you so much. I think actually sitting down with the customer is so important and so vital. And you really understand things that you would have to test and test and test to get to that that point.
So for us, and the reason why I would recommend UX24/7 is because it’s taken our understanding data to another level.
Paul Blunden: Right? That’s really interesting. And whether people choose to work with us or not. I think it’s a really important lesson actually, to sort of build on the data stack with some research as well. Jordan. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on the last project and the relationship with us.
And we love working with Safestyle. It’s a really interesting business and transformation you’re going through and has been fascinating to watch. Thank you very much for your time.
Jordan Brown – Safestyle Marketing: Thank you
End.
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Thanks for watching.