fINTECH
Payments Sign Up & Optimisation
Sign up flow for SMB users accepting Zip as a payment method.
Zip is a buy now, pay later (BNPL) service that offers customers flexible ways to pay. It’s proven offering a BNPL at checkout can increase basket size and increase sales of up to 30%.
The merchant sign up flow is the entry point for small to medium business owners to learn about accepting Zip payments for their business, how it works and to start the application process.
It’s fundamental to monitor the health of this entry point, learn and optimise to gain better results and enhance user experience. The goal is to speed up the sign up process with the least friction to get them accepting Zip payments.
The previous sign up flow was out-dated, didn’t align with the rest of the brand, tech and product innovation.
Users were originally taken through the sign up flow with account management to assist. To be able to future proof scalability, the new onboarding experience needed long term automated solutions.
Role:
Product Designer
Art Direction
UX Copy
Team:
Principal Product Manager, Senior Engineer Manager, Software Engineers x6
Output:
Responsive web designs
Sign up flow
Email communications
Onboarding education
timeline
Overall Results
Improved sign up flow generated 40% increase of pre-qualified leads.
"A record # of leads (9,197) were generated this quarter (+39.9%). This is likely due to product changes to the automated onboarding flow, generating leads with fewer data points."
"The # of merchants accredited increased slightly by 15.7%, likely due to automating ID verification and creating more operational time to complete other checks".
Customer Problems
- Extended approval wait times.
- Lengthy application process to completion.
- Need to complete entire application form to assess eligibility.
- Lack of clarity regarding next steps and application status.
- Poor experience for declined merchants.
- Unwelcoming emails that deviates from the brand tone.
- Non-responsive design, limited to desktop.
Business Problems
- High volume of calls from declined applicants, ranked #3 in contact reasons.
- Prolonged start-up time for merchants affecting business revenue.
- Backlog of manual work across teams, leading to ongoing operational costs.
Gathering Data
In order to size up the project, it was important to understand the impact of the customer problem and prioritise where best to spend efforts.
New Sign Up UX
Working with PM to strategise user experience, drop-off solutions and outline email communications that adds to the project roadmap.
Product Onboarding Education
Upon approval for accepting Zip payments, users encounter an onboarding journey, aiming to seamlessly guide them through setting up the new payment method for both physical and online stores.
In the past, merchant onboarding relied on the merchant support team, handling calls and addressing recurring issues. The introduction of educational content has empowered users to self-serve, accessing the information they need without the need for frequent calls. This strategic shift not only streamlines internal workload but also significantly diminishes the volume of support calls.
This project reflects a comprehensive approach to enhancing the user experience in payment acceptance, with meticulous execution of informative UX copy, illustration graphics, and responsive web design using Contentful CMS.
Email Design & Copy
Throughout the new sign-up and onboarding, users receive informative communications with application drop-off logic and user-friendly UX copy. This ensures users can return at their convenience, providing education on the process, reminders of user details, and updates on any application issues.
Reducing Contact Ratio for Declined Applications
- Improved email communication explaining why a business is not eligible for Zip resulted in a 30% immediate decrease of calls. Outlining the main business criteria that must be met.
- The Qualitative Data from the partner support calls were questions of why they personally got declined - the main decline reasons were:
- Annual turnover minimum not reached
- Trading less than 6 months
- Applicable industry
- The challenge was for business reasons it was stated that we cannot explain the exact reasoning for the decline as it's possible for the merchant to retake the application and answer differently. The UX copy needed to be descriptive, empathetic and reasonable explaining why at this point it's not the right time for the business.
- It was important to highlight that a good experience for declined merchants gives a good representation of the Zip brand hoping that later down the line, that merchant can still trust and apply at a later date.
Previous Sign Up UX
Overview:
Merchant acquisition homepage - Zip.co/business/payments Onboarding Funnel Application - Zip.co/business/payments/apply Full written case study - Notion UX research deck - PDF