Optimizing opportunities for repeat business at Progressive Leasing
How does a business drive customers to return? This is a question all companies must ask themselves at some point. When I started my internship at Progressive Leasing, the Customer Tools team was concerned with this exact question.
A little background
Before I jump in, let me give you a little background to Progressive Leasing and the opportunity we were solving for. Progressive Leasing, LLC, provides credit-challenged consumers with affordable lease-to-own purchase options. In other words, we provide customers with less-than-perfect credit the opportunity to take home the items they wouldn’t otherwise be able to purchase.
The Customer Tools team within Progressive is responsible for My Account, a product customers use to apply for new leases, manage current leases, make payments, and much more. You can take a closer look on the company website.
Recently, My Account has undergone major user experience and user interface updates. New features are being released on a frequent basis to improve the usability and usefulness of the product. The ability to apply and reapply for a lease is a relatively new feature that provides a new opportunity to drive repeat business. We were faced with the following question:
How do we encourage customers to apply for leases with us again and again?
Our answer? Optimize key touch points throughout the experience to prime a user to apply for a new lease.
What were those key touch points?
We identified 5 specific places where it would be best to prime a user to apply for a new lease:
1. A new user without a current lease or login credentials
2. A current user without a current lease
3. A current user with one current lease
4. A current user who recently paid off a lease
5. A current user whose lease has expired
Assumptions
We were operating under a few assumptions while we explored optimizing these states:
· Users with a lease want to discover new stores to shop at in the future.
· Users without leases need an empty state to consider applying again.
· Users who pay off a lease are interested in applying again in the future.
I made sure to also develop some anti-assumptions to stay connected to my users:
· Users with a lease don’t want to be interrupted with info about new stores.
· Users without leases don’t need an empty state to consider applying again.
· Users who pay off their leases aren’t interested in applying again.
Audits
I started my research by auditing the current state of each of the scenarios identified and the user experience with each. I focused on areas that needed improvement from both a business and user point of view.
I also identified how these states might be like states in other mobile apps. This included empty dashboards, lists with a single item, completed states, etc. I scoured the apps on my personal device for these views. Then I downloaded popular finance apps and audited how they were handling similar states.
I compiled these screens together and identified the most successful areas. I sketched out the most successful screens to determine what made them appealing. In the empty dashboard states, I discovered the best examples utilized some kind of visual element (mostly iconography, illustration, or color) and were clear in what action the user was supposed to take next. I used these findings as inspiration for my early wireframes.
Rapid wireframing
The audits helped me as I drew out some wireframes that would work for Progressive Leasing and our users. Crazy 8 wireframing is my preferred method of quick iteration at the beginning of design, so that’s how I started.
I highlighted the best designs and elements in these quick wireframes and built those in Sketch.
Iterate in Sketch
I continued to iterate on these designs in Sketch as I brought screens from low to mid to high-fidelity.
A lot of time in this stage of my process was spent on crafting the right copy for each touch point. I iterated on the copy along with the visual design components to get it right.
I also spent time working with the senior designer on the Customer Tools team, Bryan, to verify my designs would integrate with the user flow. He informed me that some cards I had played around with could not be redesigned at this time. I iterated on the content that would appear above or below these cards to optimize them as much as possible. We also worked together to focus in on the most successful designs to review with the entire design team
Design team feedback
I presented the proposed redesigns to each of the states in our next design jam session for review. The major takeaways from the session were:
1. The ‘Find a store’ card that I had carried over from some of the original designs needed more presence, possibly through color or size changes.
2. Some copy that I had carried over from the original designs needed more improvement.
3. Iconography needed review.
Incorporate feedback & begin finalizing designs
I incorporated this feedback into my designs and continued iterating on layout and copy. This resulted in cleaner designs that would better draw users into the reapplication flow.
After I incorporated all the feedback I received from the design team, I met with Bryan again to narrow down my many iterations to the most successful designs and elements.
Triad review
I presented these finalized designs to the Customer Tools team triad for final review. We discussed in depth the content on the cards and the order they should be presented in. For example, we decided the ‘Find a store’ card should always appear at the top of the screen when a user had other cards in their dashboard. I was initially concerned the card would be difficult for a user to reach with their thumb, so we had a few people around the office test it on their devices. The test showed this was not difficult for users, thus the card could live at the top of the screen, where it would get the most attention.
Did they work?
The big question now is: did all this work actually help drive repeat business? It’s too early to really know because these just launched, but as data comes in I’ll update this article, so make sure you come back and see how this project is progressing!
Learnings
This project was a learning experience for me and everyone I collaborated with throughout the process. Here’s some of what we learned:
1. Learn from others. A lot of companies are trying to tackle similar problems in different products. Studying how other companies are tackling user experience can help get your creative juices flowing and keep you from re-inventing the wheel every time.
2. Don’t feel discouraged if someone tells you something you’ve designed can’t be implemented right away. Much of the exploration I did on cards that couldn’t go into this update is being used to design the next update.
3. It’s okay if you haven’t accounted for all user scenarios at the beginning of a project. We realized a product announcement email would be a great place to introduce users to a new feature later in our process. See how I tackled that project in my article: Adding Product Announcement Emails to Progressive Leasing’s Repertoire.
