Tribune: Is this the end of the CRO?

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Wait what ?!

We're normally among experts here, but when in doubt, CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimization.

The aim of CRO is to maximize the conversion rate of a website or application.

With a mechanic that seems simple at first sight:
Understand → Seek to identify pain points and irritants
Build → Seek to build hypotheses for improvement

• Steering the optimization roadmap
• Designing marketing activations
• Wireframe, design and HTML

Activate / Validate → Seek to validate business impact

• Deployment and management of activations
  • A/B test
  • Personalization
• Statistical analysis of results
• Recommendation for widespread use

In France, a number of players entered this fast-moving market in the 2010s, including:

AB Tasty - the benchmark A/B testing tool, launched in 2009 (initially an agency before becoming the tool we know today.)
Kameleoon - Its main French competitor, launched in 2012

And pioneering agencies such as Uptilab (where my partners Amaury and Léo and I come from) are specializing in data and CRO.

So, no, CRO isn't new in France, but I think we need to take a step back from this acronym, which gives the impression that conversion rate is the alpha and omega of user experience.

I won't go into the confusion between CRO - Chief Revenue Officer, and CRO - Conversion Rate Optimization, but all recruiters will see it as good news to stop calling Conversion Rate Optimization CRO.

(I promise you that it can take a very long time to find a profile because there are so many naming conventions for our professions...)

So why stop talking about "CRO"?

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"The acronym CRO no longer reflects the reality of our business and, above all, is very simplistic in terms of our understanding of visitors' real needs".

- Amaury Ortolland, Co-founder @ Welyft

The essence of the business:

In fact, the business as we knew it has evolved, broadening to encompass not just conversion, but also customer engagement, retention and loyalty. It's not just about converting users into customers, but also about optimizing the entire customer journey.

Beyond simple conversion, the organization needs to be increasingly cross-functional. For example, solutions are being adapted to cover broader aspects such as the personalization of the user experience.

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The CJO :

It was with this in mind that, at the start of the Welyft adventure, we coined the acronym "CJO" for Customer Journey Optimization.

We were convinced that by taking this approach, it would be possible to unlock new horizons for growth, at a time when, more than ever, users want to be considered on an individual basis.

We wanted to simplify and make accessible the deployment of omni-channel , individualized user paths.

Unfortunately, as the more attentive among you may have noticed, we are pushing this approach less and less, because the silos between teams are now too great.

We believe in vision, while execution takes longer to put in place.

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Product discovery:

Stemming from product-mode organization and design thinking, the discovery phase comes before the delivery phase.

The discovery phase consists in discovering what needs to be built, while the delivery phase consists in producing the solution that has been found.

The main stages of this approach involve convergences and divergences between user problems and the solutions to be implemented.

The toolbox for experimenting and triangulating learning is broader than that generally used by CRO teams (ideation workshop, UX best practices, user tests, A/B tests, card sorting, interviews, guerrilla testing, insight repository).

In contrast to the CRO approach, which is often a roadmap independent of the IT teams, product discovery fits perfectly into the evolution roadmap of the site or application, so 100% of the hypotheses tested & "de-risked" will have an impact on the paths developed by the devs.

The discovery method can be adapted to any type of organization if it has the sponsorship of management to align stakeholders with specific routines and train CRO teams in qualitative user research approaches.

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Conclusion:

It will be difficult to change practices overnight. Some approaches, such as product-mode organization, are starting to change things naturally with product discovery, but we need to go further and gradually move the lines.
Our jobs no longer consist solely of focusing on the uplift of A/B tests and the gains this could generate. We need to embrace experimentation in its broadest sense, and help organizations test, iterate and evolve, always with the user at the center.
The world's biggest brands (AirBnB...) have understood this. It's a long-term process, with a long-term payoff.

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So what now?

XO: Experience Optimization
DEO: Data Experience Optimization
EXO: Experience Optimization

I'll put it here