True or false: Your personalization quiz delivers a relevant product recommendation that solves your customers’ unique needs and expectations.
The truth is, designing a quiz that generates the perfect recommendation for your customers is tricky. But it’s critical for your business to get it right. According to McKinsey’s Next in Personalization Report, “companies that excel at personalization generate 40% more revenue from those activities than average players.”
So, ask too few questions, and the recommended results feel generic, and the customer doesn’t convert. On the other hand, ask too many wrong questions, and your customers will drop off and find a similar product from one of your competitors.
The good news is that designing and optimizing your personalization quiz to better understand the customer on the other side of the screen is a doable fix.
A Personalization Quiz is Part of Your Brand — Design it Accordingly.
Your brand has developed a personality from your product detail page to your social media feed. Your quiz should feel the same way whether you embody a more casual tone or a sophisticated and sensitive tone.
Too often, a brand’s rich character doesn’t make it into the quiz’s copy or style. And that can be a jarring transition for your customers.
Rather than offer a dry question-and-answer session, thoughtfully and empathetically inject your brand’s voice. Insert pauses as you would in a conversation, grouping questions into topics and not bombarding them with too many at once.
Give your quiz character and make it feel like there’s a human on the other side by:
Asking for the customer’s name and speaking to them directly. Asking for the customer’s name and using it in the quiz UI is easily the most simple personalization tactic. If you can use the customer’s name in the physical product, in-box ephemera, or a signed-in experience, even better. It will make the customer feel seen and confident that you’re listening to produce the best recommendation at the end.
The Rockets of Awesome quiz captures the caregiver and child’s name to make the shopping experience highly personalized to their clothing preferences.
The Rockets of Awesome quiz uses the caregiver and child’s names throughout the UI to help personalize the shopping experience. Once the customer has checked out, the logged-in UI uses the child’s name in various places, making it feel like a shop built for the kid. For example, a personalized headline on a product listing page might say: Picture Day! Photo Ready Outfits for Christopher.
Informing them about why you’re asking particular questions. You know your product and recommended routines inside and out and how your customer’s answers may affect their final recommendation. But to your customers, specific questions may feel irrelevant or, opposite, pique their interest. Explaining why you’re asking these questions gives you more credibility and further builds trust with your customer.
When we designed Gainful’s subscription onboarding quiz, we included a friendly, informative “Why we ask this” link under specific questions, allowing customers to understand why the question is relevant to the personalized protein formulation.
The Gainful quiz includes additional context about each question behind a simple “Why we ask this” CTA. Providing context helps the user understand how their answer to the question will impact the product recommendation.
Giving the customer context about how this question will impact their recommendations builds confidence in the quiz and the final output. Knowing why also slows the user down when they understand that each question has ramifications and is not merely a filter.
Guiding customers by introducing topic transitions that lead to natural groupings of questions. Thoughtful topic transitions are essential for longer quizzes. Without UI to help guide the user, you will likely see high bounce rates within the quiz as people lose interest or become disoriented by abrupt topic changes. Transitions help keep users engaged by improving quiz cohesiveness, establishing a logical flow, and managing expectations.
Progress nav bars orient the user within each quiz section, while interstitials help tie quiz sections together.
When designing Atolla’s quiz, we included interstitial topic screens and a progressive nav bar to help tie quiz sections into a cohesive, logical flow. The interstitial screens help pace the user and allow mental adjustment before a new quiz section begins. At the same time, within each section, the progressive nav bar sets expectations about each section’s length and provides a sense of progression.
Summarizing what they’ve told you as they progress. Repeating what the customer has said allows users to verify their preferences and selections are captured correctly. It helps build their confidence in the personalized nature of the recommended product. Plus, it enables the customer to go back and change any answers they’ve already provided.
The conversational UI pattern we used in this quiz allows the user to validate their input was captured and understood correctly.
When we designed a companion app for a cat feeder, we used a “conversational” style quiz UI that allows users to review and change information on the fly. Rather than wait until the end of the quiz the user’s answer is shown immediately and, depending on the question, the veterinarian avatar will reinforce a fact about the user’s input. For example, in the above UI, the vet states a point about the demeanor of an American Bobtail cat.
Give Customers a Truly Personalized Experience By Creating Distinctive Quiz UI Paths
Part of the pull of taking a quiz is getting a customized product recommendation that makes customers feel seen and heard. But, if you’re going to deliver that experience, you have to diversify the paths each customer’s answers could lead them down.
In other words? Don’t provide the same path to every user.
Each answer should impact the recommended product and routine when the customer hits ‘Submit.’ Therefore, you must consider how the quiz changes based on each answer.
There are a few tactics with examples to keep in mind when designing customized quiz paths:
- Tailor follow-up questions to the previous answers. If your product is a skincare line, you’ll want to know how much time they spend in the sun. If they tell you it’s a lot, you may want to understand how they spend their time outside. An avid swimmer may need a different product than a long distance runner.
- Ask relevant clarifying questions. If your product is a hair care line, you’ll want to know if the customer’s hair is naturally curly. If so, you may need to know their curl type to offer the right product or routine.
- Show a final review of answers and allow the user to make changes. Allow your users to go back and see what they answered. Maybe they weren’t sure about a specific question or forgot something. One incorrect answer could have misdirected the rest of the quiz’s trajectory.
The key to getting each pathway just right is dialing in on the details. First, think about specific answers that could affect the customer’s outcome. Then, ensure you are asking all the right questions in the correct order and at the right time.
Learn How Your Product Fits Into Your Customer’s Lifestyle
It’s not enough to understand the user’s goals with your product. You also need to know how your product fits into the user’s lifestyle.
After all, you could miss critical needs by not understanding how your product fits into a broader ecosystem of products and personal preferences.
Whether your product is a clean makeup line or all about sun protection, make sure you find out:
- What other products do they use?
- Have they tried products or routines that have or haven’t worked?
- How often do they use similar products?
- When do they expect to use your product?
- Do they have allergies or have specific dietary restrictions?
Getting a holistic picture of your customer can give you the data you need to provide them with the just-right solution that solves their needs. And, if they’re confused about why you’re asking, remember to explain why the question is relevant.
When designing Atolla’s quiz, we needed to gather specific information about the customer’s lifestyle to formulate a genuinely personalized serum.
The Atolla quiz asks numerous questions about the user’s lifestyle to formulate a genuinely personalized serum.
For example, we asked questions about the number of sleep hours per night, alcohol usage, and what products made up their current routine. Each question was an essential input in determining how to formulate the customer’s unique serum. (Function of Beauty has since acquired Atolla.)
Help Customers Understand the Why Behind the Product Recommendation
After answering detailed quiz questions, it’s exciting to get to the results and see how the recommended product aligns with your needs.
But the recommended products may be less impactful if the customer is left scratching their head over why the recommendations are suitable for their needs. Or they see more upsells than actual quality recommendations.
Reinforce how the product directly ties to the customer’s answers and how it will solve their needs.
You said you have naturally curly, thick hair and live in Florida. Because of the nature of your hair and where you live, we recommend _______________ because it’s known for taming unruly locks in the heat and humidity of summer.
This final pitch is your last chance to make an impression on your customer — don’t leave anything in doubt.
Empower Customers to Make Their Own Product Decisions
It’s only natural: Customers are curious and crave the power to choose. So when you give a customer a tailored recommendation, know that they’ll also want to know what products you didn’t recommend.
So show them. And explain why certain products were excluded based on their answers. Doing so will further emphasize why their recommended product is the right one.
Lastly, make sure pathways to other available products are clear. Allow customers to easily select items that caught their eye but maybe weren’t part of their recommendations. Empowerment through choice will only boost your conversion rate.
A better user experience — and increased conversion rate — is only a personalized quiz away. And the best part is, you don’t even have to study for it.
Make Design Decisions Grounded in Customer Insights & Build Better Products
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