Automatic Payment Research and Redesign
Sandi's Cards
A website that allows users to purchase greeting card kits
I worked as a freelancer with a client who wanted to make her and her customers’ lives easier. I had a great time learning how to really make sure the business and users are both represented. By focusing on the users’ needs within the constraints of the business requirements, I was able to implement changes that helped everyone.
Overview
Info
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
August 2021- October 2021
Problem
My client didn’t have consistency in the purchase of her monthly subscription as many users were forgetting to manually pay, resulting in loss of residual income and extra time spent trying to “chase the sale”
Outcome
I implemented an automatic payment option that increased the residual monthly subscription payments from 62% to 100%
Getting Started
Stakeholder Interview
I started the project by interviewing my client. Her main concern was the retention of her subscribers as well as the time she was having to take on follow-ups and reminder emails. She stressed how important it was to her that her subscription be easy for her and her customers.
From this interview I wrote several S.M.A.R.T business objectives focusing on:
- Increase Snail Mail Subscribers and Retention rate by 18% and create a system that allows automatic payments.
Measured by: New Subscribers and retention rate. Deliverable by: 2-3 months from start date.
- Decrease the amount of hours spent on personalized follow-ups/reminder emails.
Measured by: Hours spent. Deliverable by: 2 months from start date.
Quantitative Data
Data Analysis
To fully understand the problem with retention, I examined at the monthly analysis across her subscribers for the previous 6 months. The biggest shock to the data was the previous month when my client did not make time for follow-ups and reminder emails.
38% of subscriber retention was lost that month.
Evaluation Research
User Research
After seeing these metrics, I decided to conduct evaluation research with 9 current subscribers to assess what the greatest problems and setbacks were with the subscription.
Here are some of the questions I asked:
Insights/Findings
User Research Analysis
Many users expressed that it was very easy to pay the monthly fee, however even with the reminder emails they would often forget. Most users suggested automatic payment options and mentioned how easy that would make the subscription.
After presenting the findings to my client, we agreed that implementing an automatic payment option was the best course of action.
Research
Automatic Payment Plugin
There are endless automatic payment plugin options, however there were a few requirements that needed to be met:
- Ease of automatic renewal.
- Seamless implementation to the current subscription program, so that current subscribers could be manually transferred instead of relying on them to resubscribe, possibly risking the loss of subscribers.
- Automatic follow-up and reminder emails.
- Fit in the budget.
- Easy customer service and support.
- Synchronized payment date options.
- Needed to be compatible with website theme, woocommerce, and other important plugins.
After I presented my research and the top potential options to my client, we chose Woocommerce Subscriptions.
Presenting
Automatic Payment/UX Copywriting
After the plug-in was decided, I dug into the site-map, deciding where automatic payment information needed to be presented on the website, to allow current and future customers to understand the new system. I then did UX copywriting for the following pages:
FAQ
Subscription Landing Page
My Account Page
Home Page Announcement
I worked with my client to draft several emails to send to her current subscribers to announce and explain the new system. As well as an email announcing automatic payment options to her entire client base.
Implementation
Installation and Tests
Finally, once all the copywriting had been uploaded and the emails had been sent I then uploaded the new plugin and installed it properly on her website. After installation I tested the automatic payment system, verifying its success. Once the test was completed, I created new accounts for all her current subscribers and transferred their accounts into the new system.
Final Results
80%
A Shocking 80% of her current subscribers immediately switched to automatic payments.
100%
Since implementation her monthly retention has been 100%.
38%
This retention has boosted her profits by 38%.
My client has also gained hours of time that she does not have to worry about follow-ups and reminder emails.
Retrospective
Reflection
Even though at the beginning, it seemed obvious that having an automatic payment option would be the assumed route, I’m so glad that I took the time to get to know the users needs. They verified this, but through working with them, they were increasingly excited about the changes, and willing to even pay extra money in order to have a better product. That made the delivery that much sweeter.
What I learned
By focusing and solving the problems of the users, I naturally solved the problems of the business as well. When customers truly love products, they are willing to share their insights and time with you to make their experience better.