I’m really excited about one of our new clients, the Virginia Lottery. They’re working with us to measure the customer experience on both their website and their mobile site.

This is an interesting one for me because a lottery organization isn’t a business model where you might expect the customer experience to matter a whole lot—you can’t buy tickets on the site – it’s an informational site. People are going to buy lottery tickets whether or not they like the website or the mobile site, right?

Actually, for informational, content-oriented websites that support retail sales like the Virginia Lottery, the customer experience is absolutely critical. For one thing, it’s easier and cheaper for people to get information from a website than it is from other channels, and if consumers like going to the website and mobile site, they’ll be less likely to call, visit offices, and try to get information through other, costlier channels. For another thing, studies show again and again that a good customer experience online predicts offline sales.

It’s great to see more and more organizations like the various lotteries we work with understanding the value of the customer experience.