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What is benchmarking?
Gaps in a digital service’s performance compared to competitors aren’t always obvious or easy to spot – they often hide deep within user flows and require thorough ux benchmarking research to uncover. At Markswebb, we’ve spent 14 years building evaluation systems that break down the concept of quality into hundreds of binary metrics and benchmarks. This systematic approach allows us to objectively compare digital services in detail, ensuring no aspect is overlooked.
For our clients, this means gaining valuable insights into strengths and weaknesses. These benchmarking UX findings and analytics help improve the user experience journey, increase conversion rates, boost loyalty, and reduce churn.
The key is that competitive UX benchmarking offers a more informed way to populate backlogs and guide product development. A structured approach highlights shortcomings in specific capabilities. These can be promptly added to the backlog along with proven references, which we include in our UX benchmarking report.
- We illustrate strengths and gaps with detailed graphics and tables.
- If needed, we calculate a quality metric to establish a clear benchmark for the digital experience.
- We provide actionable recommendations and best practices to help you achieve your desired ux performance level.
Why competitive UX benchmarking is needed?
Benchmarking allows you to evaluate a product or service’s relative performance against a meaningful industry standard. By conducting a structured survey of key performance indicators, you can compare your UX to competitors and gain insights such as:
- Establish a benchmarking metric that lets you set measurable goals and track progress.
- Quickly bring your digital service up to industry standards by focusing on key performance indicators and prioritizing areas for improvement.
- Identify potential future competitors and maintain a competitive edge using proven best practices.
- Discover competitor solutions that benefit your business – design elements, interfaces, processes, and technologies.
Competitive benchmarking
At Markswebb, we perform competitive benchmarking to track key metrics that measure performance and address critical challenges.Why tracking metrics?
Conversion rates
Identify how effectively your product drives users to complete desired actions, helping you pinpoint areas that need optimization.
Net promoter score
Assess overall customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing clear insights into user perception and experience quality.
Time on task
Measure how long users take to complete specific processes, revealing friction points that slow down the customer journey.
Customer retention rates
Understand how well your service keeps users engaged, ensuring long-term relationships and reducing churn.
Website performance metrics
Evaluate load times, responsiveness, and overall usability, allowing for a smoother user experience.
Service access and review
We secure access to digital services by obtaining necessary products or engaging users to record operations. This ensures a clear understanding of user interactions and workflows.
Our analytics tools and benchmarking approach
Desk research
We conduct comprehensive desk research to gather background data, identify industry standards, and benchmark digital services against key criteria.
Quantitative usability testing
Through targeted usability tests, we identify friction points, assess user satisfaction, and highlight areas where competitors excel.
Mystery shopping
Acting as typical users, we uncover hidden strengths and weaknesses in competitor offerings, providing a firsthand perspective on service quality.
Interviews and surveys
By engaging real users and industry experts, we gather qualitative insights that inform our analysis and ensure the findings are relevant and actionable.
Competitor path comparison
We map out and compare user journeys across competing services, highlighting gaps and opportunities for improvement while identifying best practices.
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UX benchmarking process
Every step provides structured, data-driven insights that help your digital product align with industry standards and achieve measurable progress.1
Concept development and presale
We start by meeting with client stakeholders to refine project objectives, priorities, and constraints. This initial phase includes selecting competitors, identifying key UX metrics, and defining research questions and timelines. The result is a clear project concept that sets the stage for accurate benchmarking.
2
Building the evaluation framework
Using agency expertise and relevant project experience, we establish a binary-criteria evaluation system. This system breaks down complex customer journeys into clear, comparable elements, enabling a more granular benchmarking analysis. The deliverable is a detailed checklist that supports objective comparisons across digital services.
3
Digital services examination
We access relevant services, either directly or through user-provided recordings, and collect data using various research methods: desk reviews, usability tests, mystery shopping, user testing and user interviews. This phase focuses on assessing how services perform against the established benchmark metrics, identifying usability issues, gaps, and opportunities for improvement.
4
Gap analysis
Based on collected data, we conduct a thorough benchmarking ux analysis to highlight strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. We prioritize critical problems and identify best practices from the market. The outcome is a clear understanding of how your service compares to competitors and which areas need the most attention.
5
Synthesizing recommendations
With the insights gained, we formulate a roadmap of actionable recommendations, emphasizing high-impact improvements that align with your business objectives. We work closely with clients to prioritize these steps, focusing on usability improvements that bring measurable results.
6
Implementation support
f needed, we provide ongoing guidance during the implementation phase. Our team ensures that recommendations are executed effectively, helping your product reach a new standard of excellence and maintain a strong competitive position.
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Who gains from our service
We identify performance gaps and uncovers opportunities to refine digital products and services across key industries.
Why choose Markswebb?
Proven quality
With years of experience tackling similar challenges, Markswebb has a deep understanding of digital services and how to conduct competitive benchmarking. We excel at pinpointing growth opportunities and delivering the right benchmarking solutions to achieve your target position.
Specialized expertise
Competitive analysis and digital experience optimization are at the core of what we do. Our researchers have in-depth knowledge of the market and digital products—expertise that most broad-spectrum UX agencies simply can’t match.
Benchmarking experience
We leverage results from previous benchmark studies and UX research, refined processes, and proven frameworks developed and tested across hundreds of similar projects. We continually improve our benchmarking metrics and evaluation systems, ensuring we consistently deliver high-quality, effective solutions for our clients.
How much will a research benchmarking cost?
Pricing for a research benchmarking project typically starts at $15,000. The exact cost can vary depending on the number of platforms, the depth of analysis required, and the size of the sample involved. Contact us for a tailored quote that meets your specific needs.What exactly will you get from Markswebb benchmark study?
Our benchmark study is a focused, actionable roadmap that helps you take your digital service to the next level. Delivered within 1–2 weeks, it includes:
- A prioritized list of recommendations, built on clear insights into key problems and growth opportunities.
- Detailed guidance on how to enhance your customer experience, improve your competitive standing, and streamline processes.
- A structured roadmap that considers the complexity of implementation, the potential impact on user experience, and the speed at which results can be achieved.
FAQ
What are user benchmarks?
User benchmarks, also known as UX benchmarks, are metrics that evaluate how a product or service performs relative to comparable alternatives. These alternatives might include previous versions of the product, competitors, industry norms, or a specific standard set by stakeholders or the product team.
What are the most effective ways to perform top tasks in a system?
To perform top tasks in a system, it’s crucial to focus on the key metrics that highlight where users struggle and where they succeed. By tracking metrics such as time on task and ux performance, you can identify attention points and make data-driven decisions to simplify workflows and improve usability.
How can you identify the key metrics that best reflect your product’s performance?
Identifying the key metrics that best reflect performance involves benchmarking UX metrics like net promoter score, conversion rates, and time on task. Benchmarking allows you to gauge its relative performance and compare your current experience to an industry standard, giving you a clear picture of where improvements are needed.
What are the essential steps in the design process that lead to successful outcomes?
The design process should include data and run a preliminary analysis before a new design phase begins. It’s time to gather an initial sample of data, run usability tests, and refine based on factors that affect the overall experience. Once the next cycle begins, use analytics tools and benchmarking approach to validate the changes.
When is the right time to redesign your product to meet evolving user needs?
The right time to collect feedback and redesign your product is often at the end of one design cycle or when evaluating a product’s performance reveals consistent pain points. A pilot study first will help identify areas for enhancement, so you can redesign your product efficiently and effectively.
What are the 4 areas for benchmarking?
The four areas typically include website ux, ecommerce platforms, service’s user experience by using data-driven insights, and site design evaluations. Each area targets metrics such as ease of navigation, conversion efficiency, accessibility, and quality of the UX.
What is a UX scorecard?
A UX scorecard is a tool that uses key performance marks to compare your ux against benchmarks and metrics. It helps identify strengths and weaknesses, making it easier to make data-driven decisions and implement improvements over time.
What sample size for UX benchmarking?
Collect an initial sample that is statistically significant to ensure accurate comparisons. Often, researchers collect metrics from enough users to identify meaningful patterns, then data and run a preliminary analysis to validate the findings.
What is UX benchmarking?
UX benchmarking is a type of research that involves evaluating a service’s performance by using metrics to gauge its comparable results to a relevant benchmark. This process helps measure progress and set actionable goals for continuous improvement.
Is UX benchmarking worth the effort?
Absolutely. UX benchmarking helps organizations track progress over time, calculate ROI, and gain a holistic understanding of user satisfaction. By identifying ways to improve the quality of the user experience, it becomes easier to make informed decisions that enhance engagement and loyalty.