Existing experience
When I started the project, we had just tested the "win back flow". If a customer didn't show up to their video call or cancelled it, we'd send them an email asking if they wanted to do it themselves instead. The results were surprisingly encouraging and gave us a signal that at least a subset of customers were interested in doing a self-guided walkthrough.
After a heuristic analysis of the existing experience, we uncovered a lot of UX and functionality problems:
- This experience was only accessible through email. This meant customers couldn't figure out how to upload videos on their dashboard, and weren't able to change any submissions they'd made.
- At points in the flow, the main CTA button wasn't visible. This caused a spike in customers who did the whole flow but didn't click submit, therefore not triggering the offer process.
- New tests were added over time, and the page had become cluttered with new test iterations
- Video uploads took a long time, forcing people to abandon the flow
- Customers who went ahead with the video call never got a choice to do the self guided version instead
We also looked at the metrics throughout our walkthrough funnel.
Though we knew the current experience was broken and needed to be fixed, we also knew that most of the drop off was between when customers started the flow and the first step.
For each point in the flow, we put together hypotheses around why customers were dropping off as a team, and saved them to address later.
Prioritization & trade offs
Though we wanted to redesign the whole flow to address all of the usability issues we uncovered, we also wanted to make sure to prioritize the parts of the flow that would give us the most immediate value and achieve our goal of increasing walkthrough completion rate. I started by designing the whole flow, so that we could understand where we wanted to go long term. But we agreed to ship and iterate in smaller pieces so that we could learn faster.
We wanted to make sure that if and when we iterated, we'd have a solid foundation to build on.
Deciding on initial direction
We looked at a few different concepts. We knew from research that customers wanted a guided experience. We also knew that one of the main appeals of the self guided walkthrough was that a customer could complete the walkthrough in pieces. We wanted an experience that allowed for both flexibility and a guided experience, so we chose the tasks concept.
North star prototype : validating the long term design
Once we established a direction, we prototyped a rough version of the whole flow to validate and test in front of customers.
While customers were able to go through the whole flow easily and the interactions were smooth, customers had a lot of questions about the walkthrough process itself that the prototype didn't address. Many questions stemmed from a lack of trust or worries about how to show their home correctly. Most of these questions boiled down to: "Am I capturing the right information?"
Additionally, people wondered why we had a second inspection in person, when the rest was over video.
Based on all of this information, we added more content about what information we needed from customers and how it would be used.
We also decided to convert the last in-person step (exterior assessment) to a video, so the experience would be entirely self serve.
Testing part 1: Will giving customers a choice add friction?
Since home walkthroughs impact the core business, and 80% of revenue, we had to be strategic about which parts we tested first. We had a goal to rebuild the whole flow because of the tech and design debt it had accumulated. However, we agreed to ship it in small pieces so that we could 1) learn something quickly and 2) eliminate variables with our experiment.
The first specific piece of the flow we wanted to test was the entry point. We explored several different iterations and landed on a choice screen. We wanted to learn whether giving customers a choice would add friction to their experience.
We learned from research that people believed they would get a higher offer by talking to a person. We also learned in user testing that some people didn't realize the cards we had originally designed were tappable. We added a section above the choice to highlight that each method of walkthrough would deliver the same results. We also cleaned up the UI based on some customer feedback and developed a new radio button style, which was later added to the design system.
Results and next steps
Goals
1. Increase the number of people who start a virtual walkthrough
2. Increase the number of people who complete a virtual walkthrough
3. Provide a better customer experience by connecting the walkthrough to the existing dashboard
Results
✅ The number of people who started a virtual walkthrough increased by 10%!
❌ The number of people who completed a virtual walkthrough decreased by 50%
😐 We'd connected the experience to the dashboard, but the customer experience was still disjointed.
Our results showed that the choice screen got more customers to start the flow. However, it resulted in an overall lower completion rate. We had solved the first problem but needed to work our way down the funnel.
After some survey research, we learned that the reason a majority of people didn't finish the flow was that they weren't ready. We hypothesized that adding a reminder or deadline would increase the odds of someone completing the flow. We added a reminder flow to help nudge people to complete the flow.
Goals
1. Increase the number of people who start a virtual walkthrough
2. Increase the number of people who complete a virtual walkthrough
3. Provide a better customer experience by connecting the walkthrough to the existing dashboard
Results
✅ The number of people who started a virtual walkthrough increased by 10%!
❌ The number of people who completed a virtual walkthrough decreased by 50%
BUT! Those who opted into text reminders were 7% more likely to complete the flow
😐 We'd connected the experience to the dashboard, but the customer experience was still disjointed.
Our reminders flow worked! Those who opted into text reminders were 7% more likely to complete the flow.
Testing part 2 : Will a new interaction design increase completion rate?
From prior research and iterations, we knew that there were both strategy and execution problems with the walkthrough experience. Though we focused a lot on the entry points, we knew there was a fair amount of drop off in the product experience after the choice screen as well.
We redesigned the experience and added the following improvements:
More flexibility
We added the ability to do tasks in any order and to leave tasks and come back to them. We also added the ability to upload multiple videos for better upload time and to allow customers to do a little bit at a time
Better feedback
We added overlays with step by step instruction, as well as progress indicators and a chance for customers to add things about their home that may not have come through in the videos.
Better education and guidance
We added task deadlines, time estimates, and educational videos to help customers feel more confident and to help them understand what to expect.
Simplified and branded UI
In parallel to this project, we were developing a new design system. We used this project to test out components like task cards and complex radio buttons. We also removed a lot of noise and decoration from the previous design and edited the content substantially
Goals
1. Increase the number of people who start a virtual walkthrough
2. Increase the number of people who complete a virtual walkthrough
3. Provide a better customer experience by connecting the walkthrough to the existing dashboard
Results
✅ The number of people who started a virtual walkthrough increased by 10%!
✅ Though overall completion rate improved only marginally, the number of people who completed a virtual walkthrough after uploading the first video went from 92% to 99%
✅ We removed a lot of tech and design debt, and through user testing found that customers enjoyed the new simpler experience
Evolution and next steps
Though we'd met most of our goals, we still saw that customers were dropping off right after opting into the walkthrough. The core design of the flow remains the same today as we continue to explore new entry points and education for customers.
