I was presented with data that showed that after downloading the NCSA app, 67% of users never entered a premium membership. Premium memberships account for 86% of college commitments that are a fit both academically and athletically for prospective college athletes. The objective of this project was to update the free user experience and membership sales experience to increase the number of users joining premium by at least 10%. I user tested the current experience and flows, both from a customer, and sales rep point of view. I identified what the pain-points were for users, and sales team members, what they liked and didn't like. Then I came up with a redesign to fix those issues, did another round of user research, and saw if users entering premium memberships increased through A/B testing the original vs. new.
Background
Below is a walkthrough of the current free member flow with some insights from the user research. As shown below, the core features are unavailable.
Current flow
The message center where athletes can talk with coaches is only available as a sample
The path to college where student athletes complete important tasks is unavailable.
The coach activity report where profile views, searches, follows, is greyed out.
message center
homepage
coach activity
After doing some user research, we found that there were some pretty major issues with the current free user experience that we had to address. I also found some more issues while completing internal stakeholder sessions.
• Users cited they didn't know a premium experience existed.
• If a member did know premium memberships existed, finding and understanding what premium membership options included was confusing.
• NCSA as an organization was scared of showing membership options in - app, for fear of displaying pricing info would drive them away.
• Customer quote: “I thought NCSA was free to a point, but becomes subscription based once the profile is complete." - Brian, NCSA parent”
• Customer quote: "I have a standard account. I'm not aware of what the premium memberships offer." - Trevon, NCSA student athlete
• Stakeholder quote: "The membership options are hidden, under this swoosh logo. We don't want to scare away potential members by our prices being too high."
user research
From empty membership boxes showcasing what certain features customers don't get, I changed the design to a card style, highlighting what value the customer would receive. I also added payment installments which live updates the card pricing.
enroll redesign
enroll Original Design
Our marketing team was re-vamping our colors, and NCSA was acquired by IMG Academy. The login page needed to reflect a more modern, clean feel. I wanted to improve app customers' first impression of the brand.
login redesign
login Original Design
Changed the homepage from greyed out milestones to a header with enrollment information linking to membership pricing. Profile information as well for a quick overview glance.
Home redesign
home Original Design
After going over all the feedback from user research, talking with the sales team and Haydee, a partner product manager, I made a few design changes and surfaced the enrollment flow for families on the homepage, so they could view memberships and enroll automatically on their own. This is a huge step for the organization, as usually someone would have to go through a recruiting assessment and be on the phone with a sales rep in order to even see the memberships. Giving customers this amount of visibility and autonomy was a major step and took many sales training, data, and stakeholder meetings.
redesign
• Users liked seeing an overview of their profile information at the top of their homepage.
• Parents and athletes who clicked on the enroll button had more knowledge of the services NCSA offers per membership level.
• No complaints from the sales team about surfacing the pricing information, especially once we added the monthly payment installment options.
• User quote: “I think the MVP membership will help us connect with the most coaches this year. We really want to message them directly.”
• Sales quote “I changed my whole script I usually talk through with the family. It's easy to adjust the plan based on their budget, and I can get through explaining what membership offers which features quicker."
redesign user research
KPI'S
ACTUAL RESULTS
Improve free membership experience and provide visibility into membership offerings.
02.
Increase premium membership enrollment.
01.
After two months of rolling out to 100% of customers, we saw 10% increase in premium membership enrollment.
02.
A / B testing with 10% of the NCSA membership pool had an 8% increase in premium membership enrollment.
01.