Thanks to www.experiencecurve.com for finding the below cartoon and creating the inspiration for this article.  Anyway, the below says a great deal about companies who put usability and user experiences at the heart of their business strategy:

It’s a given that not every business needs to be as passionate about usable design as Apple or Google.  The link between the products or services offered by your company are most likely not so dependent on usability.  Usability does not define every business philosophy.

However, where software usability must be justified is during any direct engagement with customers during the sale to ensure they have everything they need to make the best sales decisions.  This can help in 2 ways:

1. Direct customer engagement.  This can be direct interactions by customers with the website, e-news or company blog.
2. Indirect customer engagement.  These experiences involve interaction by the customer with a company representative and might be sales visits, sales calls or online selling.

In addition, consistency across both direct and indirect customer engagement is important to the overall customer experience, not just via the sales channels, but across the business as a whole.  This is difficult to do because information management, corporate image and some softer aspects of customer experience such as people’s personalities are all in play.  In particular, employee’s must have the software tools to convey the company’s brand values and information in a way that fits with the perception created by marketing through direct communication of the brand or products & services. 

Ultimately, improving software usability is critical to providing accessible sales information.  This helps to ensure the engagement of the customer at the thin end of the wedge – those few moments in time when the entire corporate investment into engaging the customer lives or dies: