ZIP
Business Merchant Adoption + Onboarding
Overhaul of application flow and onboarding experience for business owners applying for Buy Now Pay Later, digital wallet payment method.
The project provided clearer guidance, better intuitive UX copy, comprehensive product education and new onboarding self-serve hub - all seamlessly integrated into the entire user journey.
OBJECTIVE
Increase sign-up and onboarding conversion for Zip's merchant application flow. Given that merchant users make up 40% of busness revenue, there was a huge opportunity for growth.
PROBLEM
• 55% of applicants were declined after the application flow.
• Majority of these declined applicants made up for the high volume of contact calls everyday.
• Manual processes and onboarding delayed applicants being approved and integrated.
USER PAIN POINTS
• Long application process and approval time of 14 days, due to manual processes.
• Poor product education from start of application.
• Emails were out-dated, unbranded and lacked informative content.
ROLE
Senior Product Designer
End-to-end design / Rapid iteration testing / UX copy writing / Responsive web / landing page / email design
TEAM
Principle Product Manager
Software Engineers x10
RESULTS
The 12-month project was divided into phases and releases for swift optimisation and monitoring of uptake, enabling quick follow-ups for further enhancements.
After the first quarter since release, there was a significant increase of 40% successful of applications.
The new automated user journey, reduced sign-up timeframe from 14 days down to average of 3 days.
From email redesign, there was a signifcant 30% decline of customer support contact regarding application.
1. Mapping out user journey and understanding the key pain point areas that are the biggest customer friction points, and where improvements would create the most impact.
2. Communicating new ideas and solutions, liaising with various organisation departments for feedback, and starting on the first phase of the new flow to be able to live test.
The sign-up flow was condensed from 54 initial form fields to just 10-15, efficiently identifying high-quality leads for successful applications. By eliminating unnecessary sections for initial eligibility for the product, customers experienced a streamlined process, resulting in a higher approval rate for those who completed the flow.
Once a customer is approved for accepting payments, they are taken to an experience for them to self serve and onboard the product onto their online systems or instore POS terminals.
Previously, approved merchant we're contacted by support team for onboarding but self-serve onboarding streamlined the process.
The previous experience was off-brand, outdated with poor UX that didn't align to the standard of the product.
Responsive, clean and informative new designs were created, for instore and online business owners - giving them access to both onboarding self-serve pages.
Restructuring of emails during sign-up was infused with a more friendly tone of voice and redesigns. The success of the UX copy ensured customers to easily comprehend their application and progress.
Working together closely with the PM, I mapped out the entirety of the new email flow according to the new application flow and where each email would trigger due to a drop-off. This made it clearer for us to present to stakeholders and engineers the changes.
The release of a new declined email significantly reduced the rate of customer support calls. The implementation of new UX copy, clarifying reasons for unsuccessful applications, led to better user understanding and decreased support inquiries for this issue.
The decline email was particularly the downfall of the application flow. It raised high volume of customer support calls. CS would receive 10 of the same calls a day asking why they were declined. What I had to balance writing these emails needed to be a similar structure to CS communication so I liaised with them closely. We were not allowed to highlight specifics about their declined application - but instead a better understanding of how to get approved next time and reapplication timelines.
A substantial amount of rapid testing was implemented throughout the process of this project. Analysing the data highlighting drop-off points allowed us as a team to learn why these were and add new solutions.
From analysing Fullstory live recordings of user behaviour, it was noticeable that when applicants got to the ABN form field, a long pause would happen - it was assumed that they're searching for their number offline or entering the official ABN Lookup website. Here on the form, we added a link for users to understand if the application timeframe lessened.
From a Hotjar poll added on the application flow, we gathered data in a CSV to understand what applicants are getting stuck on. Here was the misunderstanding what business phone numbers were valid, Australian phone number was only valid at this point.
