Process & Pricing
In just a few weeks, our 3-phase research and design process will solve onboarding issues that are hurting your conversion, retention, and related KPIs.
Discovery
Phase 1 will shine a light on the main onboarding problems blocking your interested users and offer specific suggestions on how to fix them.
1. Onboarding audit
We’ll start with a short call to get a handle on your specific onboarding-related goals and challenges.
We’ll then audit your product’s entire onboarding system (lander, signup, core activation flows, and welcome email) for issues that are turning your new users away.
Our efforts will culminate in a deck that covers each screen of your product’s onboarding—flagging points of friction and offering actionable UX and messaging fixes along the way.
2. Findings workshop
Wrapping up, you‘ll get a chance to ask us anything during a 1-hour video call where your findings deck will be presented and your onboarding ROI will be calculated.
Diagnosis
Phase 2 goes deeper by helping you see exactly where test users are getting stuck and why your recent churners chose to bail. Replete with funnel analysis and in-depth design suggestions, this phase will give you X-ray vision into your user’s experience and a clear path forward.
1. Live-product user tests
You’ll see what’s blocking your users and learn what they’re thinking through a full day of expertly-moderated user testing.
We’ll ask the right (non-leading) questions, sit with the awkward silences, and handle the messiness of participant recruiting, scheduling, and incentive delivery so you don’t have to.
Your team will simply tune in and follow along as 5-7 perfectly recruited users attempt to reach their Aha! moment in the core of your product.
See how we go beyond basic usability testing.
Are 5-7 participants enough? Can you recruit our ideal users?2. Churned user surveys
Adding to our test learnings, we’ll survey 15-20 of your recently-churned users to understand why they churned in their own words.
The learnings that come from this method can be huge and painfully obvious in hindsight but often lead to immediate increases in retention when implemented.
3. Findings workshop
With research output in hand, we’ll book a collaborative work session with your team to go over our learnings and suggestions—connecting them to messaging and design treatments we’ll prototype and user test in Phase 3.
Design
This phase is designed to build upon Phase 2. It takes our depth of learning (and your product confidence) to the next level with done-for-you design that’ll improve your onboarding UX and related KPIs without slowing down your team.
After just three weeks you’ll walk with a gorgeous prototype backed by user testing and deep product thought that your devs can run with.
1. Protoype design
We’ll leverage pragmatic UX, visual design, and persuasive copywriting to create a prototype that’ll solve the issues uncovered in Phase 2. Expect 2-3 design iterations (punctuated by collaborative reviews) before moving on to user testing.
Should our developers be involved? Can you use our design system?2. Prototype user testing
We’ll put our prototype to the test with a full day of moderated user testing (with 5-7 ideal participants), followed by a team-wide analysis session designed to help us unpack learnings and prioritize design next steps.
3. Prototype iteration
To further the design and solve for issues uncovered during user testing, we’ll conduct 2-3, quick, design iterations and reviews with your team—ensuring technical feasibility and that we’re all on the same page as we push towards delivery.
4. Delivery & Support
You’ll now have a vetted prototype, brand new user insights, and strategic guidance that will help you activate more users and improve related KPIs. We’re also happy to review staging builds and answer sticky implementation questions during your dev and QA process.
Which deliverables will we receive? How long can we rely on support?Advanced retention analysis
Adding this “hard data” service to Phase 2 offers an increased level of design confidence that funnel analysis and qualitative methods alone cannot.
A few questions retention analysis will help answer:
- Which design changes are more likely to improve retention?
- Which specific user actions lead to activation?
- Where are my most successful users coming from?
- Which personas retain the longest?
Working closely with your team, we’ll leverage your product‘s usage data to build and analyze retention curves and behavioral cohorts that will help us further the effectiveness of your onboarding based on hard data.
“Great, but what if my product’s data is gapped or messy?”
Don’t worry. We’ll see what you have and go from there. We can work from platforms such as Google Analytics, Amplitude, Fullstory, Kissmetrics, Heap, etc... Spreadsheets, data warehouses, SQL, and NoSQL are fine too. And if we need more (or different) data, we’ll suggest how to best collect it without making life hard for your devs.
Key deliverables
- Design suggestions backed by hard data and evidence
- Retention curve and behavioral cohort graphs
Phase 2 add on
$3,900
Adds about 1 week to Phase 2
Home/landing page copywriting & design
Few things can improve your product‘s recurring revenue and retention more quickly than a high-converting home/landing page.
By ensuring your visitor’s questions and objections are addressed (the obvious and hidden ones), and by leveraging natural-sounding copy that helps folks “see” themselves winning with your product, they’ll become less skeptical and much more likely to give you a shot.
Working from Phase 2’s research learnings, our conversion copywriter will author a persuasive page (in the voice of your brand) that will resonate with your target audience and move them to action via proven psychological principles.
After a round of design effort, we’ll user test the new page—checking for message clarity, objection handling, and general efficacy. Copy and design will then be edited and refined as needed (with input from your team), affording increased conversion and delivery of a gorgeous evidence-backed page your team can get behind.
Key deliverables
- Beautifully-designed responsive web page, written specifically to increase your conversion rate by 5-30%
Phase 2 add on
$8,900
2 weeks
Phase 3 add on
$5,900
Adds 1 week to Phase 3
User-activation email sequence
Across the SaaS landscape, a sobering 40-60% of free trial users will never login a second time (even worse for consumer apps). Getting just 1 in 10 of these folks to return and activate could increase your annual revenue by 5-13%. Huge gains for little effort.
However, without a detailed plan and persuasive copywriting that’ll motivate them to return and complete your activation events, it won’t happen.
Armed with our research learnings, we’ll create a strategic email sequence that goes beyond the vague “tips and tricks“ welcome emails they’re used to. By providing outcome-based guidance related to your product’s capabilities, we’ll help them “see” and believe your product can actually solve their “unique” problems–overcoming their skepticism and motivating them to log back in.
Key deliverables
- Strategic, 5-email sequence, expertly-written to win back stray signups and increase your activation rate
- Segmented messaging and delivery strategy to help you get the most out of your new sequence
- Consideration for how your push notification and remarketing strategies play in, if applicable
$3,600
Less than 2 weeks
Ad hoc user testing & design sprint
This fast-moving, ad hoc testing and design sprint is perfect for:
- Expanding the depth of learning and fidelity of an existing Full or Semi Circle project
- Leveling up another area of your product
- Bringing a new product capability to life
You’ll gain confidence in your product direction, boost team alignment, and see your devs hard at work in just two weeks as they build from a prototype that solves the problems uncovered during user testing of your live product or prototype.
Key deliverables
- On-brand prototype that‘s ready for dev handoff
- Done-for-you moderated user testing, recruiting, and scheduling of 5-7 target users
- Test-session access (live or recorded)
- Collaborative post-testing analysis workshop & research report that benefits your entire company
- Effortless team alignment & upskilling opportunity
