INDEED RESUME SEARCH
CASE STUDY

OVERVIEW

In 2017 Indeed Resume pivoted its business strategy to support a SAAS model – by 2018 we accounted for $100M in yearly revenue thanks to the newly-implemented subscription model.

Despite this growth, the subscription management experience remained unchanged since launching. The cancel journey was a poorly defined experience that left customers with negative last impressions. This is the story of how I improved the subscription management experience for our customers to reduce churn for our business.

MY ROLE

↳ Interface design
↳ Experience design
↳ Experience prototype

TEAM

Product manager
UX Researcher
Content strategist

IMPACT

_Reduced customer churn rates by 19%
_Improved customer retention rates
_Reduced calls to Sales and Support for cancelations by 95%

REDUCING CHURN BY SAYING GOODBYE THOUGHTFULLY

CORE CHALLENGES

As our new subscription model began to scale, we noticed two major problems affecting our business and customers.

HIGH CHURN RATE

The churn rate of 10-15% per month was extremely high and further compounded by the recent economic reccession. This trend was not sustainable for our product's long term growth goals.

NEGATIVE LAST IMPRESSION

We made it difficult to cancel a subscription; the journey was more transactional than human. Ending a relationship with a customer with a poor experience reduces the odds customers will return if they have a future hiring need.

UNDERSTANDING WHY CUSTOMERS CHURN

To reduce churn we needed to understand why our customers stopped using our product. Our researchers and research operations team recruited former customers who had canceled their Resume Search subscriptions. We conducted 600+ in-person and remote research sessions with churned customers to understand specific drivers for canceling, and pain points throughout that journey.

In person studies at our research lab

KEY FINDINGS

Speaking with churned customers helped us to understand why users canceled, and the pain points they experienced throughout that journey. Understanding why users canceled helped illustrate potential opportunities for our business to retain more customers.

SOLUTIONS

After defining the scope and iterating on solutions, I gained alignment from key stakeholders and delivered a series of features that solved usability issues and pain points identified through research.

FIXING DISCOVERY

Users who canceled expressed difficulty with the process, and often failed to understand where to look and ultimately ended up contacting support.

I moved the affordance to the subscription status tab, where users expressed they expected it to be. I also designed an expanded subscription details view that helped users to better manage individual subscriptions and understand upcoming events, such as renewals.

DASHBOARD

SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS

EXPLAINING THE CONSQUENCES

Canceling has consequences – recruiters lose access to their profile, messaging templates and candidate contact info. We did a poor job of explaining those consequences.

To address this, I recommended every cancel journey start with an interstitial that clearly explained what they would lose if they ended their subscription.

INITIAL WARNING

CONFIRMING CANCEL

COMMUNICATING THE CHANGE

When users cancel a recurring subscription they need to be explicitly informed the cancelation has been processed—our previous experience provided no feedback. I designed a feedback notification toast, informing users their cancelation was successful. I designed an email confirming their cancel, that also served as path to resubscribe for customers who may return in the future.

Providing immediate feedback

PROVIDING IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK

Provided a toast upon a successful cancelation to confirm to users their cancelation was processed.

Following up with an email

FOLLOWING UP WITH EMAIL

A cancelation email sent post cancel helped to reinforce the cancelation was successful and provide a path back to re-adoption.

A FRAMEWORK TO REDUCE CHURN

Research insights helped our team gain empathy for our customers, and better understand why they were cancelling their subscriptions and how we could help them. I developed a problem-solving framework to keep our focus on solving for customer problems, by understanding what was wrong so we could offer relevant solutions. This framework helped to align stakeholders early on, and created a foundation for designing the user experience.

STARTING  WITH WHY

We wanted our cancel funnel to feel more human. Asking users why they were canceling their subscriptions helped to demonstrate we care about their experience, value them as a customer and helped improve last impressions. It also created a foundation for us to provide solutions for the most common reasons users cancel.

NO HIRING NEED

40% of our churned users surveyed mentioned they just needed a break and filled the role—customers cancel for many reasons, not always bad. I advocated for surfacing an existing ‘pause subscription’ feature into this journey to help users maintain their existing account, templates, past searches, saved candidates that they may need at a later date. This also enabled our business to retain them as customers.

TOO EXPENSIVE

Many customers expressed they were canceling to switch to a less expensive plan. To better solve this need, we exposed a “downgrade” option once customers have indicated they are canceling for price related issues.

IMPACT

We launched the initial MVP with iterative releases that solved smaller usability issues and common pain points, followed by a phased release in selected test markets that integrated the cancel funnel framework. After launching, we closely evaluated the impact this work had on our users, pivoting when necessary and continuously measuring impact.

REDUCED CUSTOMER CHURN RATES BY 19%
Instead of canceling, many customers that were attempting to cancel ended up pausing or downgrading their subscriptions. We observed an immediate reduction in cancelations month over month, as well as positive downstream impacts on revenue churn rates.

IMPROVED CUSTOMER RETENTION RATES
Addressing pain points that caused customers to cancel their subscriptions and improving the user experience has led to increased customer retention rates.

REDUCED CALLS TO SALES AND SUPPORT FOR CANCELATIONS BY 95%
Instead of customers failing to cancel their subscriptions online and calling Sales and Support to request a manual cancel, customers can now manage their subscriptions more easily online; helping our internal partners focus on sales, rather than providing support for avoidable problems.