Leading product-product conversion improvement toward future integration
For: Rightworks (Internship) | Timeline: June - August 2024 | Team: Individual
Context: After historical success with their flagship product (offering cloud services for accounting software), Rightworks (at the time Right Networks) acquired several related accounting products. At the start of the project, Rightworks managed and delivered the products separately, with the developing vision of gradual integration. The product-product conversion initiative was designed as the precursor to product integration efforts, with a secondary goal of gaining insights for future integration strategies.
This project was my primary assignment during my product management internship. Although it was my collective responsibility, I recruited an internal team across departments to bring it to life. I cannot share the assets as they are now property of Rightworks.
Reflection: This is undoubtedly my favorite and most personally valuable project to date. I enjoyed working on a project with a longer timeline, real users, and relevance to the business. I struck a good balance between researching independently and networking with internal stakeholders to discover new perspectives. By bringing people along from the start, I gained and maintained support throughout my project and was able to promote user empathy across the business.
In a step towards product integration, Rightworks launched an initiative to get their flagship product users to try one of their acquired secondary products
Shortly before the start of my internship, Rightworks launched an initiative to increase acquisition and adoption for one of its secondary products by capitalizing on its existing flagship product user base. By the time I started, the team had already:
Developed the back-end process for a user to enable the secondary product on the cloud (in the flagship product, tied to their existing account)
Developed the user onboarding process for the secondary product
Implemented a link on the primary product to enable the secondary product
Converting users was a multi-step process, and it was considered successful only if users completed the entire process. Two months after implementing the product-product link, only 6% of users who took the first step within the flagship product successfully completed the conversion process. The goal of my project was to determine actions the company might take to improve this metric.
Tasked with improving the low conversion, I sought answers from internal and external perspectives to gain a better understanding of the problem and current efforts
Considering product-product conversion process improvement, I questioned:
User Perspective: What does the conversion process look like from the user’s end? What actions must users take to complete each step of the process? On average, how long does each step take? Has anyone talked to users about this process, and if so, what did they discover?
Aggregate Analytics: How many users successfully get to each process step? Is there a common drop-off point?
Back-End Development: Which steps are necessary for successful back-end processing? How difficult would it be to eliminate/merge each existing step? Are there any current efforts to do so?
Business Value: What is the long-term strategy to translate customer acquisition for the secondary product into financial gains? How do the pricing plans currently work for both products, and how are they proposed to change as the products are integrated? To what extent is business value dependent on the user's long-term adoption of the secondary product?
While my project focused more on user acquisition, I also questioned how we might improve the adoption of the secondary product:
Value Creation: What is the core value of the secondary product to a flagship product user?
Targeting: Is the value relevant to all users or only a certain segment?
Time to value: What additional actions must a user take to experience the core value of the secondary product?
To explore these questions, I networked with internal stakeholders, analyzed product usage data, and walked through the customer journey
With help from my supervisor, I identified and contacted relevant stakeholders across the product, analytics, UX, development, marketing, and customer nurturing teams for both the flagship and secondary products. In my 1:1 meetings, I captured internal perspectives and past/current efforts across the company, which I continuously compiled and organized to form a comprehensive understanding of the challenge.
Through these contacts, I accessed product usage data in PowerBI and Pendo. I taught myself how to use the tools to pull data to inform user success across process steps in the conversion funnel. The conversion process was 11 steps in total, but we were limited to 4 observable ‘checkpoints’ to measure user retention:
From the high ratio in Checkpoint 2, I could see that users were intrigued by the prospect of the secondary product. However, with the low retention from Checkpoint 2 to 4, they were getting lost or changing their mind before reaching value. I particularly noted the transition from Checkpoint 2 to 3 as a key user drop-off area. With the low page view time (and high dropoff to Checkpoint 2 without filtering for viewing time), I also hypothesized that users might be getting to the Checkpoint 1 page without the intention to convert or even awareness of the secondary product.
To observe the funnel from the user perspective, I created an account on the flagship product. I walked through the conversion process from the user's point of view, noting the perceived value and costs of continuing to each next step.
Through this analysis, I identified the likely rationale for the high drop-off from Checkpoint 2 to 3:
With a lack of information describing the secondary product, flagship users are unaware of its potential value.
After reaching Checkpoint 1 (by arriving at the correct page), the cost of continuing is simply pressing a toggle. It benefits the user to take the action because the perceived cost is so low that the relative value of enabling is perceived to be higher (despite being virtually unknown).
With a lack of guiding information on the page, users who continue to Checkpoint 2 (by pressing the toggle) lack the understanding that the process requires further steps.
When they do press the toggle, the rest of the instructions to complete the remaining steps pop up all at once, creating information overload. This information overload creates a sudden increase in perceived cost, subsequently creating a sudden decrease in the perceived cost-to-value ratio. For many, it is no longer worth continuing.
I mapped the conversion service blueprint to promote a cross-functional understanding of the process, and communicated opportunities to shape user perceptions
To address the pain points I identified in the user journey, I recognized the following opportunities to shape user perceptions of cost and value:
Educate flagship users about the secondary product to help them recognize value
Help and encourage interested users to navigate to the correct page (Checkpoint 1)
Accurately set user expectations of the cost (time) to complete the entire process to maintain a steady cost-to-value perception throughout (to increase retention)
If possible, reduce the actual cost (time) of completing the process by optimizing back-end processes
I needed the attention and coordination of product, UX, marketing, and development teams to develop solutions addressing these opportunities.
To prepare for this collaboration, I mapped the conversion process in terms of both user actions and back-end functionality. I tried to tell a story with the process, backing key pain points with user sentiments and product usage data.
The pitch promoted cross-functional empathy and understanding to drive the internal adoption of my opportunity recommendations.
As the project gained traction, I recruited a team to develop and implement an A/B test to improve user awareness, interest, and understanding of the conversion process
I pitched the opportunities to the CTO and Senior Director of Product Management, who approved moving forward with solution development and A/B testing.
I identified information that would address the user opportunities at each step and created solution mockups for the quickest-to-implement, high-impact solutions for testing. I pulled together relevant internal stakeholders to contribute to and launch each solution.
Increasing user awareness of the secondary product with educational material: I worked with the secondary product’s marketing team to use existing educational material to craft a short pop-up message introducing the secondary product.
Setting value and cost expectations with a clear call to action on the relevant page: For users who reached the Checkpoint 1 page, we included more in-depth educational material to further drive the product value. We also gave users a time estimate to complete the entire process (setting cost expectations) and told them what to do to get started.
Encouraging user progress with visual success criteria: I worked with the secondary product’s team to gather screengrabs from various steps in the conversion process. We included success criteria in the secondary product on the flagship product (when a user met Checkpoint 2) to help them make the jump across products.
Throughout, I worked closely with the UX team to ensure all changes matched design guidelines. My supervisor continued to help me identify contacts to get the solutions developed and QA tested. He also helped me advocate for prioritizing back-end optimization in sprint planning, effectively reducing the process from 11 steps to 8.
Side Note: One of my team members who had recently completed a course with Teresa Torres recommended her book, Continuous Discovery Habits, to me. I read her book (after my internship) and was greatly inspired by her frameworks for product discovery and strategic innovation. In this project, I unknowingly utilized the opportunity-solution framework, and in future projects, I hope to implement it more purposefully.
