Checking in on checking out.
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My Role
• user research
• interface design
• ux copywriting
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The Problem
After analyzing our conversion funnel on user completing checkout, we found that a disproportionate amount of users weren’t completing checkout on the very last step: payment.
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The Interviews
To better understand the problem and uncover as many angles as possible, I tracked down users in three categories:
Users who abandoned check out
Users who completed check out
Potential users (any rideshare driver that hadn’t used Fair before)
1. The Abandoners
When I asked this group why they had abandoned checkout on the Payments page, the main reason was uncertainty around the fees included in the price that they were previously unaware of.
2. The Completers
The next group I talked to had already completed checkout, but I wondered what struggles or reluctance they might have experienced. Similar to the Abandoners, the Completers also had question marks over what the fees entailed but finished checkout anyway since they were desperate for a car.
3. The Potential Users
With the help of the data and product marketing teams, we identified users who were interested in getting a Fair car and asked them if they could complete their checkout in person at our offices. We observed their behaviors and reactions throughout the funnel and sure enough, as they looked over the payments page, they started asking us what these “Taxes & Fees” meant. Once trust was compromised, users began to question whether or not they wanted to continue with Fair.
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The Discoveries
Taxes & Fees?
Because users didn’t understand the fees involved with their price breakdown, many weren’t completing checkout because they wanted answers before committing to a deposit, first payment and autopay that equates to several hundred dollars.
They even ruminated risking to pay more with a competitor than give money to company that wasn’t being transparent with their fees.
Bank Account Required (Surprise!)
In order to complete checkout, a user needs to complete three types of payment:
Deposit
Payment forms accepted: credit or debit cardFirst Week’s Payment
Payment forms accepted: credit or debit cardAutopay
Payment form accepted: Bank account only (ACH transfer)
The forms of payment accepted for the deposit and first week’s payment included credit or debit card. However, to complete Autopay, a bank account was required. This surprised users and caught them off guard, as they had no idea that this would be required until the very last moment. This step was literally the last action needed to complete checkout and we were getting feedback that this last second surprise was a key reason why users got cold feet in checkout.
Starting With Too Much Text
After digging further into the reasons why users were caught off guard about the bank account requirement for Autopay, we realized that our Start page had the potential to set expectations better for our users. The Start page was where users landed after successfully registering and being approved to rent a Fair car. But the amount of text on this page overwhelmed users, which led to them glossing over the details and hitting the Next button without being aware of what to expect.
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The Solution
The Start Page
How could we better inform users about the checkout process and what to expect? Our solution was to visually represent the checkout process and exposing details to give users a heads up on what to expect in each step.
This is where we attempted to warn users that they would need a bank account connected to complete checkout.
The Payments Page
Users felt like Fair wasn’t being transparent (which clashed with our core brand principle of being transparent and “fair”). The background story behind using this vague/broad term was that these were government fees and standard rental taxes that every state imposed. However, every state had different rates. Since Fair operated in multiple states nationwide, it was too much of a burden to customize each tax and fee relative to the state.
But since we discovered that this was affecting conversion and brand perception, the legal team, engineering and I worked together to share the truth behind “Taxes & Fees”. (That kind of sounded like an intro from a documentary film, didn’t it?)
Below are the results of our collaboration:
Tooltips
In addition to adding the exact name of the government fee for each state/city, we created a tooltip to allow users to quickly learn more about the fee if they still had questions.
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Results
Less Calls and More Collaboration
Not only did the new user experience reduce customer service calls and improve checkout conversion, the collaboration across legal + marketing + engineering + product + design improved team morale and invigorated more teams to communicate and solve problems together.
New Design System Component
The newly designed and developed tooltip was also a favorite amongst designers and developers. So we added it to our design system.
Here is a bonus look at how I designed the tooltip with our engineers to look and function.