In the spirit of Halloween, imagine a world where goblins, ghosts, and ghastly waits lurk in the shadows of your website monitoring. In the world of automation, nothing is more terrifying than the sneaky presence of ‘waits’. They may seem harmless and solve problems in the short term but in reality, they can distort the very essence of monitoring.
The Curse of ‘Waits’
Every website’s ultimate goal is to provide an excellent user experience. Whether you are trying to get visitors to purchase products, log in to a platform, read news, or anything else, if UX is poor, bounce rates will increase and users will get frustrated. Especially going into the holiday season of 2023, data suggests that 72% of consumers will be actively looking for discounts and shopping over Black Friday / Cyber Monday alone. This will increase visitors to your site but also create a more competitive environment as you are compared against your competitors.
It is essential to build a monitoring platform that reflects your core customer’s journey and tests the core functions of your site. The focus therefore is on your user journey monitoring and ensuring it is covered so any issues can be identified and resolved. However, when we integrate waits into our journey automation, we’re essentially putting on a blindfold. Why?
Distortion of Real-time Data: Waits can create artificial pauses that don’t necessarily mirror the real-life user experience. This creates a gap between your monitoring results and actual user experience and reduces the effectiveness of your data.
Inaccurate Results: With waits, you might either overlook a genuine issue or flag a non-issue. Both can be fatal to your website’s reputation and user trust.
Increased Noise: Waits can clutter your monitoring tools with redundant alerts as the monitoring does not present accurate data. These false alarms not only divert attention from real issues but also waste valuable resources often looking into a symptom rather than the root of a problem.
Busting the Ghosts of Waits
Reviewing your current monitoring and removing unnecessary waits can be rewarding, as the true picture of your website performance comes to light you will experience:
Crystal Clear Insights: Without waits, what you see in your monitoring is what your users experience. This genuine reflection ensures that your decision-making is based on authentic data. Particularly when it comes to bounce rates, every second counts. Data suggests that 61% of consumers will leave a website if it does not load and give them relevant information within 5 seconds.
Efficient Resource Utilization: A reduction in false alarms and a focus on genuine bottlenecks. This ensures that your resources are optimally utilized, leading to a healthier website.
Less Noise, More Accuracy: The start of Halloween begins the holiday season from Black Friday to Christmas. You can steer clear of pitfalls, ensuring a smoother journey for your users especially when traffic is high and the stakes are higher.
Conjuring a Better Monitoring World
Once the ghostly waits are exorcised, the real magic begins. You can leverage genuine data to:
Optimize Performance: With clear insights into where the bottlenecks lie, you can channel your resources more effectively to improve performance. Especially when this comes to Third Parties you can hold them to account and not give them a chance to drag down your site.
Enhance User Experience: With no false alarms distracting you, genuine user concerns can be addressed promptly, ensuring satisfaction. Your monitoring will pick up frustrating issues that visitors may not report but will be affecting your conversion rates.
Empower Decision-making: Reliable data can translate into strategy. Be it marketing, sales, or tech development, data-driven decisions through accurate monitoring will fuel good decision-making and innovation.
This Halloween, let’s pledge to banish the haunting waits from our automation practices. In an ever-evolving online world, the key to website success lies in chasing away bad monitoring practices for a clearer, healthier site. Let your monitoring tools always bring treats, not tricks!
Happy Haunting, and even Happier Monitoring!
