Problem: Users would select a Pro plan on the product select page, but would not finish checking out, negatively impacting revenue for 5 straight months.
Project Duration: 1.5 Months
Project
Buy Flow Usability
Company Overview
Crunchbase is a startup prospecting tool used by sales reps, founders, and investors.
My Role
Senior User Researcher
The Problem
Users would select a Pro plan on the product select page, but would not finish checking out for the account, impacting revenue for 5 straight months.
Product Select Page
Checkout Page
Research Process
Kick-off Meeting: For this project, I worked with the Product, Design, and Marketing team leads. I met with all stakeholders to understnad business goals and surface assumptions. Collaboratively, we framed research goals.
Research Plan: I created a research plan that included a project timeline, participant selection criteria, recruitment screener questions, and an interview and usability test script.
Recruitment: I partnered with the data analytics team to pull a list of users using Periscope dashboards.
Research Methods
This research project used a mixed-method, multi-phase approach.
Goals
Understand why and where users are dropping off the funnel of the checkout flow.
Understand what is causing users to progress through the buy flow, but stop before checking out.
Test new Buy Flow design prototype.
Phase 1 (quantitative):
The product team observed customers as they decided which Crunchbase product was best for them, and watched to see whether or not they finished or dropped out of the checkout flow. The results from this observation informed the qualitative phase.
Phase 2 (qualitative):
I interviewed 8 users who fell into two groups (A or B). Group A were users who visited the Crunchbase website within the last 2-4 weeks and did not sign up for a Crunchbase account. Group B were non-Crunchbase users who were Sales Reps, SDRs, and Account Execs.
During the interviews, I also conducted usability tests on a new buy flow to uncover usability issues to help drive revenue.
Outcomes
This research resulted in a better understanding of how users in this market decide to sign up for a SaaS tool, what they look for during a product trial, and how they prefer to pay for online services (Paypal vs. Credit Card).
Recommendations Included:
Reduce decision fatigue by streamlining checkout flow. The current state asked the user to make too many decisions before checking out with the Pro plan.
Make labels clearer because users were confused about what they were offered during the trial and during the monthly plans.
Offer a monthly payment option because startups and small businesses have limited funds, making it difficult to pay a large amount upfront ($588 after 7-day trial).
Make it clear whether the user has selected the monthly or annual payment option.
Extend trial period from 7 days to 14 days.
Impact:
Increased trial user conversion rate by 2% through streamlining a checkout flow that increased MAU subscriptions by 1%
Launched A/B test that increased new user registrations by 100% and increased freemium user logins by 3%
Crunchbase now offers monthly payment plans
The new Product Select Page is cleaner
Users have more payment options to choose from when checking out (Credit Card, Google Pay, and Paypal)
