Episode Summary: #692 – The Lifetime Value of Milliseconds in the Customer Experience with Jackson Repp, Harper

In episode #692 of The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®, host Greg Kihlström delves into the critical yet often underestimated impact of milliseconds on customer experience and business growth. Joined by Jackson Repp, Field CTO at Harper, the conversation explores how minor enhancements in digital performance can lead to significant gains in customer lifetime value, brand loyalty, and overall revenue.

1. The Critical Role of Milliseconds in Customer Experience

Greg Kihlström opens the discussion by highlighting the profound effect that even slight improvements in digital interaction speed can have on customer behavior and business outcomes. He poses a compelling question:

"If you could speed up every digital interaction your customers have with your brand by a full second, what would that be worth to your business?" [00:00]

Jackson Repp responds by emphasizing the cumulative impact of milliseconds across various customer touchpoints. He explains how each function—from querying a shopping cart to delivering personalized content—contributes to the overall user experience and conversion rates.

"They add up, right. Every function from querying my shopping cart to delivering me a bit of content... all of those things add up to am I able to click the button once you've finally convinced me?" [06:06]

2. Scaling Performance: Challenges and Solutions

The conversation transitions to the challenges brands face in maintaining performance at scale. Repp discusses the limitations of vertical scaling and the necessity of distributed application architectures to handle large, global audiences.

"It's just literally you alone asking a database a question and getting back information and personalized content that does not scale... the more we can distribute that load, the more we can do." [04:00]

He underscores the intimidation brands feel towards distributed systems but acknowledges the essential shift needed to deliver efficient, scalable customer experiences.

3. Composability and Performance Integration

Greg introduces the concept of composability in modern web infrastructure, prompting a discussion on how performance considerations are integrated into composable architectures.

"In a composable environment, speed and performance... should be a very important aspect of choice, right? In addition to features and things like that." [10:59]

Jackson elaborates on Harper's approach to composability, focusing on maintaining performance by ensuring functions operate close to the data layer. He explains how Harper's platform combines essential components—database, API layer, in-memory cache, and interfaces—into a unified package to prevent performance degradation.

"We combined... the database, the API layer, the in-memory cache, ... all into one package so that no matter how you composed those individual attributes of your project, they were all sitting directly on top of that persistence layer." [08:32]

4. Bridging Marketing and Technical Performance Metrics

Kihlström shifts the focus to the intersection of marketing, customer experience (CX), and technical performance. He probes into what marketing and CX leaders should communicate to their tech teams to ensure both scalability and performance.

"What should marketing and CX leaders be asking their tech teams... when it comes to ensuring both scalability as well as performance in a composable stack?" [12:47]

Repp advises leaders to identify and prioritize the key performance metrics that align with their business goals, advocating for backend solutions that minimize client-side performance hindrances.

"What are the real numbers that you are after?... If we can extract performance metrics, query metrics user metrics from the back end and reduce... client side stuff." [13:16]

5. Linking Performance to Business Outcomes

The discussion delves deeper into how performance enhancements translate into measurable business benefits. Repp outlines a two-tiered approach: improving SEO rankings through core web vitals and boosting conversion rates via personalization and A/B testing.

"The first is what do SEO bots see?... Next are the things that truly impact conversion like personalization, A/B testing." [15:31]

He provides examples of how speed optimizations can lead to higher search engine rankings and increased revenue, demonstrating the direct correlation between technical performance and business success.

6. The Cost of Neglecting Performance

Kihlström poses a critical question about the risks brands face when deprioritizing performance enhancements in favor of new features. Repp warns that neglecting performance can lead to competitive disadvantages, where initial gains from new features are offset by deteriorating site performance.

"What are brands risking if they don't make performance a priority?... Ultimately the execution fell down because of the stack we used." [17:45]

He emphasizes that as competitors continuously improve their infrastructure and performance, brands failing to keep pace may find themselves lagging behind despite offering innovative features.

7. Maintaining Agility in Performance Management

In the final segment, Repp shares insights on staying agile within his role and the broader organization. He highlights the importance of a composable and intelligent performance stack that can adapt to varied customer challenges while ensuring scalability and efficiency.

"As an organization we are constantly looking at the variety of challenges issued to us by our customers and trying to stay one level abstracted above that." [20:10]

Repp concludes by reiterating Harper's commitment to providing a platform that supports developers in creating performant, scalable applications tailored to diverse customer needs.

Key Takeaways

• Milliseconds Matter: Small improvements in digital performance can significantly enhance customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and revenue.

• Scalable Solutions: Vertical scaling has limitations; distributed architectures are essential for handling large, global user bases efficiently.

• Composability with Performance: Integrating performance considerations into composable architectures ensures flexibility without sacrificing speed.

• Collaborative Metrics: Marketing and CX leaders must work closely with tech teams to identify and prioritize performance metrics that drive business outcomes.

• Business Impact: Enhancements in speed directly correlate with improved SEO rankings, higher conversion rates, and increased revenue.

• Competitive Edge: Prioritizing performance is crucial to stay competitive; neglecting it can lead to loss of market position despite innovative features.

• Agility in Practice: Building and maintaining an agile, performance-focused infrastructure enables organizations to adapt to diverse challenges and scale effectively.

Notable Quotes

• "If you could speed up every digital interaction your customers have with your brand by a full second, what would that be worth to your business?" – Greg Kihlström [00:00]

• "They add up, right. Every function... adds up to am I able to click the button once you've finally convinced me?" – Jackson Repp [06:06]

• "We combined... the database, the API layer, the in-memory cache... all into one package." – Jackson Repp [08:32]

• "What are the real numbers that you are after?... If we can extract performance metrics from the back end and reduce... client side stuff." – Jackson Repp [13:16]

• "What are brands risking if they don't make performance a priority?... Our execution fell down because of the stack we used." – Jackson Repp [17:45]

Conclusion

This episode underscores the often-overlooked significance of micro-level performance optimizations in shaping robust customer experiences and driving substantial business growth. By integrating performance into the fabric of composable architectures and fostering collaborative metrics between marketing and technology teams, brands can harness the true potential of milliseconds to build agile, customer-centric enterprises.