Mercy Corps Boosts User Empathy and Understanding
See how Mercy Corps increased their user empathy and understanding with the Comprehensive Conversion Audit.
The Overview
Mercy Corps is a global humanitarian aid agency serving the world’s most vulnerable communities. They help people in desperate need of help respond and rebuild in the face of crises, from natural disasters to war and climate change.
The Challenge
Mercy Corps initially reached out to The Good because they had known for some time about the thoughtful approach that The Good takes to improving the consumer experience and conversion rates, and they were excited to have that first-hand experience.
Mercy Corps was trying to figure out how to make it easier for folks who wanted to understand the organization and take action to help them in their mission. They had a strong desire to focus on their users, so they wanted to see where website friction existed, and where they could make some significant improvements.
Mercy Corps explained that their website acts as a welcome mat—a way for visitors to get involved with them through learning, helping, or giving. Mercy Corps wanted to make this engagement process easier.
“Working with The Good was great, in terms of being highly collaborative, fun to work with, super fast, and responsive. Everything you’d want from a partner.“
Mark Jacobs, Director of Digital Optimization, Mercy Corps
The Process
Because Mercy Corps’ primary goal was identifying their areas of opportunity, The Good performed a comprehensive conversion audit.
“The Good did a whole lot of analysis and data collection on the Mercy Corps website,” Mark said, “using not just Google Analytics, but additional analytics to find out what people were doing or not doing on our site—as well as user testing to understand why they were taking those actions.”
The Good looked at a mountain of data over several weeks. This process included a full 360-degree qualitative and quantitative conversion analysis, as well as a complete assessment of website deficiencies, opportunities, and conversion barriers.
“The Good is very knowledgeable, and working with specialists like them—who are focused on conversion—will reveal things that you might not find otherwise.”
The Solution
At the end of the research process, The Good delivered a summary of their findings in a detailed strategy session. Using their conversion hierarchy framework, The Good provided not only specific recommendations for improvements, but also a mindset for Mercy Corps to approach their testing and optimization efforts moving forward.
“We’ve already begun making changes and seeing results from the key takeaways of the conversion audit.”
The conversion audit helped Mercy Corps identify opportunity gaps and target the areas where they needed to take action to improve the consumer experience and optimize for conversions.
The Results
After the conversion audit, Mercy Corps adopted a singular design principle of “user needs come first.” Historically, the invisible influence rested more heavily on internal agency needs. The conversion audit was a key exercise that helped Mercy Corps increase its empathy and understanding of its users, with the ultimate goal to raise more awareness and support for the world’s most vulnerable communities.
Learn more about Mercy Corps and their mission at mercycorps.org.