Enterprise UX: The Secret Weapon for B2B Success
Even the best enterprise software can be hampered by poor UX, creating a frustrating experience for employees and customers alike. Leonardo Hodgson digs into the importance of the B2B user experience and looks at how Cerillion is addressing the challenge of enterprise UX.
Let’s be honest; most enterprise B2B software is not easy to use.
CRMs, Content Management Systems, ERPs and BIs are all notorious for their poor user experience (UX) design and low customer satisfaction. But in recent years, there has been a new generation of enterprise software companies – Salesforce, Asana, Slack and Monday are just a few examples – that are doing a great job of creating user-friendly B2B products.
What’s the difference between these products and the old guard? It’s all about UX.
These companies are putting users first, designing products that are easy to learn and use and, most of the time, using the latest technologies and SaaS models to deliver their products. As a result, employees are happier and more productive, and businesses save money on training costs while maintaining a considerable competitive advantage over other, less evolved solutions.
In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at enterprise UX and why it’s so important for telcos looking to upgrade their BSS/OSS solutions.
What is the meaning of enterprise UX?
Enterprise UX is the design of user experiences for backend tools and applications used internally by employees to execute or automate business processes. Put simply, it is the design of software that helps employees do their jobs.
Enterprise software is often more complex and feature-rich than consumer software, because it needs to support a wide range of business needs and workflows. This means that UX designers need to create interfaces that are efficient and easy-to-use, while capable of handling and processing large amounts of information, so performance is also a critical factor.
Why is enterprise UX important?
Enterprise UX has a particularly important role in modern B2B software. It can help businesses cut costs, boost employee productivity, and improve customer satisfaction. As well as this, it can enhance internal workflows, reduce training and support demands, and give companies a more competitive edge.
It’s for these reasons that B2B software providers are increasingly aware of the importance of enterprise UX. Many providers are now investing heavily in UX design to ensure that their products are easy to use and meet the needs of their customers.
Benefits of good enterprise UX?
Having streamlined enterprise UX can have multiple benefits for businesses offering B2B services. Just some of these include:
Reduce costs: Poor enterprise UX can lead to increased costs in training, documentation and technical support. Good enterprise UX can help to reduce these costs by making software easier to learn and use.
Improve productivity: Good enterprise UX can help employees to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. This can lead to increased productivity and profitability for the business.
Increase employee satisfaction: Employees are more likely to be happy in their jobs if they have access to easy-to-use software, leading to improved morale and reduced employee turnover.
Gain a competitive advantage: A good enterprise UX can give businesses a significant advantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace. When employees have the tools they need to do their jobs effectively, businesses are better able to innovate, respond to market changes, and deliver on their customers’ expectations.
So what elements are there to consider when it comes to implementing good enterprise UX practices?
What are the fundamentals of Enterprise UX?
Designing great enterprise UX isn’t just about how things look. It’s also about how things work. To deliver effective enterprise software experiences, UX professionals must consider a range of fundamental principles.
Here are some of the key pillars:
User-centred design: At the heart of enterprise UX is a focus on the user. That means designing with empathy and understanding the needs of all users that are likely to come to the site. You may choose to understand their pain points through interviews, user research, and testing.
Simplicity and clarity: Enterprise systems are often feature-rich, but that doesn’t mean the interface should be cluttered or overwhelming. Effective UX design prioritises simplicity and uses intuitive navigation, which means users can complete complex tasks quickly and confidently.
Consistency: A consistent design language across modules and workflows helps users build familiarity and reduces the learning curve. This includes standardised UI elements and a cohesive visual identity across the product.
Performance and responsiveness: Enterprise tools often handle large volumes of data, so performance is crucial. Laggy interfaces or long load times can significantly hinder productivity.
Accessibility and inclusivity: Enterprise systems are used by diverse workforces, so accessibility must be built in from the start. This includes support for screen readers, keyboard navigation, adequate contrast ratios, and adaptable font sizes.
Security and compliance: Enterprise UX must be designed with security and regulatory requirements in mind. This means balancing usability with robust authentication and elements like audit trails.
Challenges of enterprise UX
Streamlining the UX in enterprise software can often be a complicated process. This complexity arises from the need to configure and manage intricate interfaces that contain numerous features and cater to a vast array of specific business operations and workflows.
Many organisations continue to rely on outdated legacy systems, designed with functionality as the primary focus, often overlooking user experience. These legacy systems aren’t just devoid of proper UX considerations, but are also costly to maintain, turning necessary updates into very expensive projects which may not be economically or operationally viable.
Moreover, implementing enterprise UX often runs into significant resistance. Many businesses are naturally inclined towards maintaining the status quo, especially regarding their software, following an if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it philosophy of not embracing changes unless it’s absolutely necessary. This approach, naturally, impedes progress in adopting better UX practices.
In terms of security and compliance, it’s also crucial to remember that regulations vary across industries and geographic locations, further complicating the matter; designers must ensure the fulfilment of these requirements doesn’t compromise the overall ease of use and accessibility of the software.
Cutting-edge UX with Cerillion Enterprise
Our user-first design approach comes to the fore with Cerillion Enterprise, one of our core BSS/OSS solutions. It combines modernised UX principles with deep telecom domain expertise to automate complex B2B processes and deliver a seamless and intuitive experience for users.
From sales and order teams to system administrators and finance, your users will benefit from a consistent interface, intelligent workflows, and self-service capabilities. With Cerillion Enterprise, CSPs can reduce friction and improve productivity.
How Cerillion is elevating B2B enterprise UX
At Cerillion, we believe that enterprise software should be as easy to use and seamless as your everyday consumer applications and tools, with minimal customisation required. That’s why we’re investing heavily in enterprise UX design.
Cerillion’s design system provides developers with a collection of common components that they can use to build products more quickly while maintaining a consistent user experience.
The design process is split into small phases, the output of which is a working prototype. The design is launched and updated after every stage, thus creating an iterative process. The new designs not only take the product or service a step further, but also bring in real-world insights obtained from user research, regularly conducted to understand the problems that customers are facing and to discuss solutions.
Our UX team works closely with the development team to ensure that all products are designed and built with a strong focus on user experience, while reviewing and testing products to identify and fix usability issues. We have adopted Agile UX, which focuses more on an incremental approach to UX design, combining the principles of Agile software development with UI/UX design.
Cerillion also continuously updates its design documentation to ensure that everyone has access to the required information and understands the product. This helps to reduce the number of misunderstandings that can lead to usability issues.
Finally, we’re always working to make our software more customisable for system administrators, so they can easily configure it to meet their specific business needs without resorting to custom code. This makes deployment and maintenance faster and more cost-effective, while also improving usability.
Enterprise UX: the verdict
Investing in enterprise UX is essential for businesses of all sizes, and brings a wide range of benefits.
By creating efficient and effective experiences for their users, organisations can improve employee productivity and satisfaction, save money, improve customer satisfaction, and gain a crucial advantage over competitors.
Cerillion is committed to solving the enterprise UX challenge and providing our customers with the best possible user experience. We believe that good UX is essential for businesses to be successful, and we’re constantly evolving our products to support this goal.
If you’re interested in learning more, please contact us today – we’ll be happy to discuss your BSS/OSS needs and how we can help you to achieve your business goals.