Checkout.com / Hosted onboarding
Establishing an automated, self-serve onboarding model to reduce complexity, accelerate time-to-live and increase transacting customers on dashboard.
TIMELINE / 5 months (Oct 2022 - Feb 2023)
RESPONSIBILITIES / UX, research, visual design
Summary
As the design lead on this project, I focused on enhancing the client onboarding process for our Integrated Platform customers. Previously, specialised onboarding agents spent significant time chasing clients for the correct documentation and business details, leading to an average time-to-live of 12 hours. Through in-depth research, I identified key issues like the complexity of manual form-filling and the additional delays caused by agents having to follow up with clients.
To address these challenges, I streamlined the form’s UI, introduced automation, and implemented a self-serve approach.
As a result, we reduced the time-to-live to just 3.5 hours, achieving an estimated 66.6% improvement, which increased the number of live clients enabled for transacting on the Integrated Platform by 7.5%, from 64,185 to 68,977.
This project's success was the company's first step into automation, laying the groundwork for forms and self-service features across our product offering.
Live clients transacting
Metrics of success
12 to 3.5 hours
66% estimated improvement for
time-to-live
64,185 to 68,977
7.5% increase in
live clients enabled for transacting
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IP customers faced increasing challenges in pursuing business information and documentation from clients for onboarding and transaction initiation.
Estimated time-to-live was around 12 hours, resulting in lost revenue for our IP customers.
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IP customers face a manual, complex, and time-consuming onboarding process, which diverts resources from smaller businesses and leads to a significant loss in revenue.
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If we simplify and automate the client onboarding process for IP customers, then the time required for onboarding will decrease, allowing smaller businesses to allocate resources more efficiently and ultimately reducing revenue loss.
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Analysed the existing process for onboarding.
Documented each step of the current manual onboarding process identifying pain points and inefficiencies.Gathered Quantitative data on the time spent in the current onboarding process.
Identified key challenges.
Spoke with existing IP customers and internal customer service managers to really understand the key challenges they faced.Reviewed feedback and complaints related to the onboarding process to pinpoint common issues.
New self-serve workflow
By shifting the responsibility of onboarding from the IP customer to their client a new workflow for onboarding via the dashboard was established.
Identifying key challenges
I engaged with existing IP customers and internal stakeholders to fully understand the key challenges we were facing. In this workshop, I got participants to review two competitor onboarding models uncovering any unknowns and identifying the obstacles our team needed to overcome for this project.
Thematic analysis
Thematic analysis is a method I use to dive deep into data and pull out patterns or themes that really stand out. By breaking down the data and looking for recurring ideas or issues, I can uncover the key insights that matter most. This approach is great for making sense of complex experiences and behaviors, as it helps me turn a large amount of information into clear, meaningful themes that guide my decisions and shape strategies moving forward.
User feedback
By listening to our users thoughts, frustrations, and suggestions, I established a clearer picture of what's working well and where there’s room for improvement. It’s like having a direct line to the people who matter most—our users—so I can make better decisions and create designs that truly meet their needs and expectations.
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Simplifying forms.
Redesigned onboarding forms to make them more user-friendly and less time-consuming.
Introduced automation.
Implemented automated systems to handle repetitive tasks and reduce manual effort.
Established a self-service option.
Created a self-service portal for clients to submit their information and documentation independently.
Built prototypes.
Developed prototypes of the redesigned onboarding process, including new forms, automation features, and self-service options.
Usability testing.
Tested prototypes with a small group of users to gather feedback and make iterative improvements.
Deployed solutions.
Rolled out the new onboarding process to a larger audience, ensuring that all necessary support and training was provided.
Monitored performance.
Tracked key metrics such as time-to-live and active enabled users to evaluate the effectiveness of the changes made. -
Time-to-live.
Reduced time-to-live from 12 hours to just 3.5 hours, achieving an estimated 66.6% improvement.
Active users.
Increased number of live clients enabled for transacting on the Integrated Platform by 7.5%, from 64,185 to 68,977. -
Design system contribution.
Developed and contributed to internal components for automated address and business lookups which can be reused across multiple products.
Source of truth for onboarding.
A modular framework was established which ensured that the onboarding form served as a single source of truth. This approach enabled brand consistency across our product and improved workflow efficiency across teams
Client onboarding journey
The journey begins on the IP customer's dashboard, they send an invite link to their client, the client receives an email with instructions to create their own account and provides all necessary details for onboarding their business. Once the business has been verified the client has access to their own dashboard to configure their payout methods. This helped our clients enabled for transacting metric.
Content grouping and streamlining
Reviewing feedback from our user testing sessions the content within the form was streamlined to aid cognitive load and readability.
Automating repetitive tasks
Automated systems were introduced to handle repetitive tasks, reducing manual work and making it easier to complete large forms, such as with the new address lookup feature.
Refining components
Components like document upload were refined to provide clear instructions and context, ensuring users know exactly which documents to upload and how to complete the task smoothly. This helped the time-to-live metric.