Trial Signup

More problems uncovered

To dig deeper into the problem, I partnered with the researcher for light internal research by shadowing customer calls, and leading a 2 day workshop with Account Executives, Account Managers, and the Customer Support teams. It was a good opportunity to build relationships and leverage their knowledge to understand what worked about the existing flow, what didn’t work (questions/areas of confusion for users), and areas for improvements/opportunities.

From the key insights from the workshops and going back to the metrics in Mixpanel, the researcher and I shared our findings with the PM and the impact on growth:

• The lead generating questions on Step 1 (main signup form) and Step 5 (Configure your EHR screen) haven’t been helpful in identifying high-value leads for the Sales team.

  • Potential loss of ~2.9k users.

• Some of the screens are not mobile-optimized so customers cannot complete the flow.

  • More than 30% of users sign up for the product on mobile; this is a potential loss of ~2.8k new customers.

• It’s unclear to customers that they are signing up a trial for their whole practice vs. an individual account.

  • ~30% - 40% customer calls are due to confusion around accidental duplicate accounts

  • There is no way for customers to join a practice that already signed up. Customers are forced to dig into their email and find an invitation which could end up in a Spam folder.

• Drop off in the “Email verification step”

  • 4th highest drop-off in the flow with a potential loss of ~3.4k users/customers.

• This is due to a slow delivery of the verification email.

• Account Executives will often will stay on the phone with a customer just to kill time until that email comes – that way the customer doesn’t drop off during the sign up process.

Objectives

With more clarity on the usability problems and the large financial impact it had on the company’s revenue, the researcher and I prioritized a list of objectives with its respective efforts, and presented them to the PM with which she agreed with.

• Add new lead-generating questions on the sign up form for the Sales team.

• Ensure the flow is optimized for mobile.

• Add an entry point for customers to easily join an existing practice account to reduce volume of customer calls.

• Investigate why customers are not receiving verification emails quickly.

• Update branding.

Collaboration & alignment

Upon working on the designs, I noticed an overwhelming amount of questions and copy that was building on top of the new design. Given the goal is to get the customer into the product as quickly as possible, it was important to not bombard new customers with a long form to fill out. Since Account Executives communicated that the “Configure your EHR” screen was unhelpful for leads, I proposed removing that screen, and consolidating valuable questions to the main sign up form.

Thankfully, the stakeholders agreed that was the right move, and we worked together to refine the content. 🎉

Before

After (redesign in desktop view)

The final designs accomplished the following:

• Incorporated new lead-generation questions on main screen, and gained alignment with stakeholders for low value lead-generating screen with high drop-off to be removed.

• Included entry point on main screen for user to join an existing practice account to reduce accidental duplicate accounts and decrease customer calls.

• Created a mobile-optimized experience.

• Sped up the email verification emails to 5 seconds or less to reduce drop-offs and customer calls.

• Updated copy for every screen with clear actions for user to take, and redesigned all screens with updated brand and marketing styles to maintain visual consistency across all platforms.

Outcome

• Increased the overall completion rate from 35% to 62% – just above our 60% goal. 🎉

• Customer-facing team have said they have significantly less duplicate accounts created due to adding the new entry point to join an existing account. 🎉

What I would have done differently

The time it takes for the user to receive the email verification was a discovered issue, and based on the results, it still seems it could be contributing to the drop off. Though I initially advocated we dig into this problem, there were no resources to investigate it. I would have made a case to prioritize this to reduce drop-off affecting conversion.

Takeaways

• See if there are external factors contributing to the problem. In this case, the vendor that sends the email-verifications to allow customers to move on to the next step. Consider all players and issues contributing to the experience is essential.

• Test, test, test! As a high traffic flow, it’s important to test all screens, viewports, and devices to ensure it’s bug-free and works as expected. Advocate for at-least 2 bug bashes and invite people who are not familiar with the flow to participate. It’s an opportunity to share what’s been developed, answer questions, build relationships, and strive for quality excellence.

Next steps

• Look into the data to determine more insights, such as how many practices/users finish signup but never convert to a subscription, and what we can do to retain customers.

• Think about ways we can engage users during the trial experience. The sign up experience is only one segment of the full experience for a new customer interested in signing up. We don’t keep users engaged throughout the trial. Only ~42% of users come back and login after signing up within those 14 trial days. Many users don’t even know they are in a trial or forget they signed up for PF. The other teams called out that it is not obvious during the signup of what PF offers, and they need more guidance on what to do or what they can do (features) after creating an account.