Improving Onboarding Churn For a Top Productivity Suite

📝 Product: A suite of cloud-based migration tools

🔎 Research categories: Discovery, Evaluative

👥 Users: Small business owners

🛠️ Methods: Literature review, usability testing, user interviews, contextual inquiry, surveys

🤝 Cross-Functional Team: Sr. Interaction Designer, Content Designer, UX Manager, Sr. PM and Group PM

🗓️ Timeline: June - November 2024

🕵️‍♀️ Role: Research Lead

Research Impact: A 14% increase in attempted migration, a key retention indicator.

Background

Problem

A productivity suite targeting small businesses (SMBs) faced significant onboarding churn, with only 2% of new administrators attempting data migration. At the same time, we knew from past research that 95% of small business admins prioritized a seamless migration process when choosing a productivity suite.

My task was to uncover the pain points, which discouraged SMB admins from completing data migration. I designed a research strategy to streamline the experience, increasing adoption and user satisfaction.

Research Goals

  1. Understand the end-to-end workflows of SMB admins during migration.

  2. Identify bottlenecks, technical roadblocks, and sources of user anxiety.

  3. Provide actionable recommendations to improve the migration experience and increase adoption.

Methodology

Some of the key methodologies for this project are listed below, with explanations as to why they were chosen for this project:

  • 6 Stakeholder Alignment Interviews: Conducted interviews with key stakeholders, including product managers and designers to define this highly complex problem space, understand the product vision, and align on the desired research impact. These conversations clarified the critical areas of focus and ensured that research learnings would directly support product strategy.

  • Literature Review: Synthesized existing internal research to understand common migration challenges, focusing on the SMB segment.

  • 3 Rounds of Concept Testing/Cognitive Walkthroughs + Discovery: Conducted iterative evaluations of new migration tool concepts to pinpoint usability barriers and test proposed solutions. I also incorporated some foundational questions to address learning gaps about admin workflows and needs uncovered in stakeholder interviews.

  • 2 Surveys: Designed onboarding CSAT surveys to collect quantitative data on user satisfaction and qualitative feedback on the migration process, highlighting specific areas of frustration and unmet expectations.

  • Journey Mapping: Created a detailed map of the SMB migration process, highlighting pain points and opportunities for optimization.

Key Insights:

  • Due to their limited technical background, novice SMB admins struggled with data preparation due to unclear or altogether missing instructions, leading to anxiety and abandonment.

  • Users were upset about the lack of automated data retrieval and the need to interrupt the seemingly simple migration process to spend hours compiling data manually.

  • CSV-based workflows used for user mapping between source and target environment were a major frustration, being time-intensive, manual in nature and prone to error.

  • Unclear terminology in the migration overview phase and little guidance on troubleshooting resulted in feelings of frustration and lack of control over the outcome.

Recommendations for targeted improvements:

  1. Enhancing technical documentation with screenshots and GIFs to support non-technical users.

  2. Providing step-by-step migration process overview before a user has attempted migration.

  3. Revising UI language and error messages using user-friendly language, instead of technical jargon.

  4. Implementing automated data import and validation to reduce reliance on cumbersome CSV workflows and minimize manual errors.

  5. Design more helpful error messages with actionable next steps to reduce frustration during technical roadblocks.

Results: Early Signs of Success

  • Migration adoption rose from 2% to 16% within the first quarter of implementing the changes.

  • Surveys and feedback indicated reduced user anxiety and greater confidence in completing migrations.

  • My research directly influenced the roadmap for future iterations of the migration tool, aligning with broader business goals to improve SMB retention.

This project honed my ability to tackle complex enterprise workflows, combining deep strategic research with tactical studies. By aligning research initiatives with business priorities, I was able to deliver insights that not only addressed immediate usability challenges but also informed long-term product strategy.