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LESS ANNOYING CRM • ONBOARDING SEQUENCE
Enhancing the onboarding experience for new users
Web Application | Product Design
Project overview
Less Annoying CRM is a simple, yet effective CRM for small business owners. Their focus is to provide users with a low-tech way to manage their contacts without all the extra + unnecessary features major CRM companies provide.
For this project, I was asked to reimagine the sign-up page and onboarding experience to enhance the experience for new users. While efficient, the current sign-up page is focused on getting the user signed up as quickly as possible, whereas we decided to take the approach of a longer process, but one that continues to nurture + highlight value for the user.
The role: Product designer working alongside CEO + Marketing Coordinator || The scope: Product design || The timeline: 1 month
The challenge
Many long-term users of Less Annoying CRM commit to using their platform once they have their “aha moment”. This moment typically comes with finding out how much they can customize their CRM to their business needs. This moment doesn’t happen for all users as some never truly get to see the customized experiences during their free trial + hence never commit to a paid plan with the company.
The opportunity
This presented an opportunity to design a sign-up process that highlighted the primary ways in which they could customize their experience + showcased examples of what it would be like for themselves, or their team, to use the product.
User research
For this project, I did not oversee or handle user research. Instead, our company hired a third-party research company to deep dive into what is working with our users + where we could improve on a larger scale.
From their findings, I had these key takeaways that helped me navigate my design process for this project:
+ Users commit to LACRM after having an “aha moment”, specifically about being able to customize their pipelines + custom fields.
+ LACRM has a “goldilocks effect” on users, meaning users love it because it’s not too complicated like larger companies, but too limited like smaller ones. Ultimately, users see us as “just right”.
+ The primary user on multi-user accounts tends to take on the role of “communications manager”, meaning their focus is on tracking communication between different users on the account + their shared contacts.
Initial screenshot of the SIGN UP PAGE
Pain points
With the above findings, I was able to do a deep dive into our current sign-up page to identify pain points that we could improve upon.
+ Pain point 1: Text-heavy As the final page before users commit to a free trial, the page overwhelms users with text that attempts to explain what they can expect as opposed to showing them visually what’s to come.
+ Pain point 2: Missed customization opportunity After this page, users are redirected into the app with no further steps. There’s a missed opportunity on this page/in this process to encourage them to take an extra moment to set up their workspace so it’s customized from the beginning rather than starting them off with default demo settings.
Ideation
In deep diving into the sign-up page, I found that while it was efficient to have one form, a multi-step process could be a good option to prep + prime users for their customized experience.
I broke down the sign-up page into a wizard onboarding experience laid out as such:
+ Sign-up Form with form (First Name, Last Name, Email, Password)
+ Industry Selection (which customizes their pipelines + custom fields when selected)
+ Team/User Selection for how many users will be on the account
+ E-mail Marketing Opt-In for our biweekly newsletter
High Fidelity Mockup Attempt 1
In my first attempt to design this sequence, I created the below pages for the onboarding flow. These mockups combined literal designs from within the app + mockup-style graphics to further highlight the product’s value. While elements of these designs worked, the second round of iteration focused on having a cohesive approach to the designs.
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The final result
The final result was an onboarding experience that used graphics to further convey the value the customer is about to receive. The overall feel for the sequence is a sleek, cohesive one that tells the story of how the user will interact with the app. This onboarding experience also has enhanced opportunities to highlight the customized experience a user will receive.
Next steps
The proposed Sign-up page (singular page) is being A/B tested against the current Sign-up page to confirm it does not have a negative impact on conversions.
After adequate testing, I would work to revise the design, if needed. Then the team would begin implementing the entire onboarding sequence. The estimated ship timeline is by early 2023.
For Review + Research: Once implemented, I would ideally love to review how this design impacts not only sign-ups, but conversions + retention. To further refine this design, I’d focus on the below metrics:
+ Percentage of new users that select an industry. While still optional, I would like to track how many new users actually follow through with picking an industry with the new design.
+ Percentage of free trials that convert to paid accounts. My goal is to see if the new onboarding sequence increases conversions for our free trial.
+ Metrics on retention of users. Conversions are great, but I would also like to focus on how the retention of users going through this process is in comparison to the old sign-up page.