Redesigning the User Journey

Map of the existing onboarding journey.

AXIAL, 2023
Director, Head of Buyside

ROLES
Strategy Leader, Project Owner, Researcher, UX Designer

TEAM
Megna Reddy, Customer Success Analyst
Nick Coetzee, Chief of Staff
Tejan Kapoor, Operations Associate

Overview

Background

As Axial grew, limited onboarding capacity constrained the number of new members we could add to the platform. Focusing our team’s energy on onboarding also constrained our capacity to facilitate other touchpoints that data suggested could increase expected lifetime customer value (e.g., regular check-ins; monitoring high-risk accounts). I was tasked with redesigning the user journey to unbridle new member growth from expanding onboarding team headcount and to rebalance the team capacity allocation to onboarding vs. other points of the user journey.

Constraints

• Minimal access to engineering or product resources

• Majority of new members joined via self-signup and never connected with a sales team member

• Despite having signed a contract, many new members did not understand the terms of their membership, including their success fee obligation, before connecting with the onboarding team

• Many friction points associated with successful account setup and activation

Team Structure

I was the owner of this project and responsible for managing it’s progress, design, and outcomes. As our Chief of Staff and the leader of our operations team, Nick Coetzee acted as a strategic advisor in my decision-making process and oversaw Tejan Kapoor’s work creating the back-end infrastructure required. Megna Reddy was a member of my team and the individual contributor who took over running the onboarding process once it had been launched, tested, and verified. Megna supported me in executing and running the experiment.

Design Process

Research

• Interviewed the three onboarding team members

• Reviewed previous taped onboarding calls and user data to identify behavior and trends

Synthesis

• Mapped the existing and new journey of members from self-signup to activation and ongoing engagement

• Identified opportunities to reduce manual touchpoints (phone calls, direct emails) early on in the customer journey, and reallocating team resources to later, higher-value touchpoints

Research suggested that members were frustrated by having to wait for a scheduled onboarding call to activate their accounts and that the majority of new members would be able to successfully navigate the set-up process without much guidance. I anticipated that a minority of new members would not be able to navigate the website and would make mistakes in their setup, but was confident we could create guardrails to catch and help those members as needed. I eliminated the mandatory onboarding call and instead allowed new members to activate immediately but required a short check in call which reviewed the success fee obligation and resolved any issues with their account.

Writing and Designing Content

• Designed and built a series of instructional modals that layered over our website to guide new members through their setup (built via Appcues, a no-code tool)

• Wrote a series of emails to supplement the information in the modals and encourage members to complete the setup process if needed

• Wrote a one-pager introduction to the platform and reviewing the success fee obligations members had agreed to in their contracts

V1 Launch

• Tested and launched the new journey, which included a series of modals, emails, and in-app triggers

• Designed tracking and reporting mechanisms

• Identified a limited segment of new members to target for the initial release

• Conducted user interviews with all members of the sample set to solicit feedback and gauge effectiveness

Iterations

• Identified FAQs and coached my team on how to address them

• Designed and launched new modals to address pain points, including "What is a pursuit?" and “Welcome to New Deals!” (pictured below)

• Adjusted the time between events (ex. activation and account review call) based on feedback

• Once V1 had proved itself effective, I automated processes that my team I had been running manually to free up the team’s capacity