The Right User Interface Will Grow Your Business

News / 11.05.21

Let’s start with a statement that I think will ring true with many readers here:

The customer user interface is the single most important aspect of any home automation system!

It seems simple but after all of the consultation, design, build etc, the single most important element of any home automation system is the interaction between the customer and the system. Get this right and you will have a very happy customer that is willing to tell his/her friends that you are a hero company and heartily recommended. Get this wrong and your unhappy customer will not just tell their nearest and dearest. The goal with every system should be to delight your customer and create a new ambassador for your brand. Otherwise, they might make it their life’s work to muddy your name (believe me, this has happened in the past!). So, what can be done to ensure that your customer has the best User Experience?

Starting with the basics, custom user interfaces have two purposes:

1.     To create macros that operate multiple devices at the same time

2.     To be a nice and intuitive experience for the customer

When home automation first started, the systems where of such a calibre that to make them work, they demanded the professional skills of experienced programmers to both engineer the automation and control aspects of the system and create the custom interface that the user would interact with to operate the system.  To simply turn on a light and close some window shades required an element of voodoo magic that we would leave in the hands of the programming wizard tucked away in the basement.  Significant time was invested to deploy each system – especially elated to creating the bespoke user interface screens and navigation. Many of the User Interface designs were exceptional, but also consumed vast amounts of valuable programming resources, while others seemed logical to the programmer, but overly complicated and in some cases ugly to the end user customer.

In reality, each UI would be different.  In many cases the graphics were poor quality, inconsistent, and didn’t necessarily coincide with anything obvious, often with icons that only the programmer could understand.  Yes, an integrator could say that they were offering a bespoke UI per project but in reality, there was very little consistency across the industry, meaning it was nearly impossible to work on a competitor’s project.  Experience suggests that some (most?) customers are impatient and would then start pressing all manner of buttons to make the system work, unsettling the system to the point that it has no idea what it is doing and would then, inevitably, shut down, requiring an expensive site visit and re-set or worse.  

 One quote I often heard from integrators was ‘If only the customer had some patience…’.  Due to the not insignificant cost of most of these systems, patience was not a word that the customers understood.  And, to be honest, why should they?  Having laid down in excess of multiple £100,000s, the system should work, right?  A non-to unusual practice was for the customer to fire the integrator and go to someone new.  However, were you to be asked to take over a job, the thought of un-picking someone else’s programming filled most integrators with dread, as the time (budget) required to do so would make the job uneconomical.

But we are not blaming the programmers here; they are hugely intelligent people that have a technical knowhow that us lesser mortals can only wonder at.  But they are NOT creative designers and their understanding of what a customer wants as opposed to what a customer needs can vary greatly.

So, the moral of the above story is this:  Why would we leave the single most important element of the customer experience, the key component that the customer actually sees, plays with and (perhaps most importantly) shows off to his/her friends, to the programmer?  In the past, it was because we had no other options.  

Wind on 20 years and things are sooo much easier.  All of the main home automation suppliers now have consistent User Interface platforms that they have spent thousands of hours developing to make your jobs easier. Through focus groups, customer satisfaction surveys and talking with hundreds of the leading integrators around the world, Savant has developed a platform that removes huge slices of programming requirement to leave a drag-and-drop configuration backend that just works.  Set up time is dramatically reduced from days to, in some cases, just minutes and the ability to slot in new devices and get them talking is so simple that anyone who knows their way around a little networking is capable of doing it themselves.  Most importantly, the user interface is created for you, and it will be a beautifully crafted experience that every customer will find intuitive and a joy to use.

Don’t get me wrong; you do need to know your way around the platform, and I would always suggest that were you looking to get involved in home automation, you must attend the on-line courses and gain accreditation, as you will learn the smart way to be even more efficient and, perhaps most importantly, capable of fixing any snags as they come up.  Once completed, you will be able to set up a full home automation system with relative ease, whilst also showcase a beautiful user interface that any user in the household can navigate effortlessly.

If you choose not to go down this route and create your own system, then great.  If you have the skills, the time and the experience, then fine and good for you.  However, are you doing this because you can create a better customer experience than the best minds in home automation?  Or are you doing it so that your customer has to stay with you were there to be an issue later down the line and, therefore, you are protecting your business?  If the former, then good for you.  That will be great until your customer moves out and the new owner has their own preferred integrator to work with, or, God-forbid, your programmer leaves the business and then charges you a premium consultation charge for any additional work!  If the latter, I have always found that using blackmail as a form of business retention isn’t a long-term solution and that perhaps you had better look elsewhere!

Essentially, why go to the laborious task of extensive User Interface design when exceptional and intuitive designs that are tried, tested and working long-term in the field are available now?  Is there a need to re-invent the wheel each time, or are we just over-complimenting things?  As a comparison, I often refer to the building of websites.  Website development (HTML programming) used to be considered magical.  Your ‘design’ would be handed over to a group of programmers who would beaver away in some unknown language and then present you with a facsimile of what you asked for.  If you then wanted an image changed, this would be done, along with the presentation of a huge bill.  If you asked whether you could do it yourself, you would be presented with a sharp intake of breath and rather patronising smile that suggested there was no way that you would be able to unpick your way through the pages and pages of code.  Nowadays, a website can be created in seconds, thanks to the adoption of off-the-shelf platforms such as WordPress.  Yes, you can still personalise how the site looks but the hard stuff, such as the programming in the language that the web understands, is taken care of behind the scenes, whilst what you work with is a back-end that allows you to drag-and-drop images and assemble great widgets and plug-ins to personalise your site in real-time.  The same can now be said for the programming of user interfaces for multi room activities.

Also, don’t forget that the humble remote control is still a very pleasing device to hand to a customer when the system is commissioned.  Not only, in the case of the Savant X2 Pro Remote, is it a very well designed and ergonomic device.  It also presents a physical attachment to the system that many customers enjoy, as it is easy to operate and immediate (there is no need to open a mobile device, scroll to the app etc.).  If you haven’t looked at X2 Pro Remote, it really is worth it as the up take by Savant customers is incredibly high.

So why does using an off the shelf platform make so much sense for today’s integrator?  Namely efficiency, consistency and design.   Efficiency, because the platform has been created with the integrator in mind, making it relatively simple to set up, manage and deploy. Consistency, allowing for any trained professional (including the platform’s own team) to be able to go into the system and fix/service/support any issues, regardless of which company or programmer originally deployed the system. And, perhaps the most important factor (especially for the customer!), the UI design, which delivers an intuitive user interface that any customer will find easy to operate and a delight to look at.

Ultimately, all of the above leads to happy customers, a happy team and a happy accountant!  What is the best way to advertise your skills?  It is through customer referral.  Creating the best experience for your customers will only lead to an increase in business.  What’s not to like?

If you would like to learn more about Savant and how you can deploy it in your business, please contact the team at Savant Europe sales@rgbcomms.co.uk | + 44 (0)1488 73366