Authentic Membership
Improving a Membership Program through Design
Timeline: July 2024 - Now (Ongoing)
Role: UI/UX Designer
Tools: Figma
In this ongoing project covering various touchpoints of the Authentic Membership program, which is a paid monthly membership offering discounts on Authentic’s various brands, I worked collaboratively with SVP-level colleagues, developers, analysts, and content strategists to hit goals for conversion, retention, and reduce cancellation.
Initially, conversion on the Membership program was under 2%, with the previously outlined goal being 12%.
OVERVIEW
In terms of touchpoints, user exposure to the program was limited to a single banner in PDP, cart and checkout, in which on PDP and in cart, triggered another modal that would provide more information. Despite the membership offering a free 30-day free trial upon signup, cancellation prior to the end of the trial was over 70%.
Through various design iterations and testing, conversion increased to over 9%, with cancellation dropping by 15%.
CURRENT STATE
Designs of widgets, banners, and other touchpoints were refined and standardized at each iteration of testing, along with the cancellation flow that also provided a space for user feedback to gather more insight on cancellation reasons. The current checkout widget includes two touchpoints, one at the top and one right above the “Pay” button, where the one at the top is a larger banner and the one at the bottom is a checkbox. Additionally, the savings text is dynamic based on the user’s cart, in which it will change from “Save 10%” to the dollar amount if the user’s cart has over $100 worth of product.
Whether conversion, cancellation, or retention, we would always test a design after each iteration in addition to other necessary steps prior to launch, such as reviewing copy with the legal team and developing with Shopify’s restrictions (or finding a loophole). There were often challenges that required tweaks or changes to the design because of legal requirements or Shopify’s checkout restrictions.
THE PROCESS
For instance, for our cancellation flow, we originally wanted another confirmation from the user to cancel their Membership account, but we were advised by legal against it because the cancellation process would have been more clicks for the user than signing up for the Membership.
We A/B tested versions of these widgets on the brand sites, where users would randomly get one variation, and over the same period of time, keeping in mind various promos that may affect interaction with the widgets, tracked user interaction with the widget and conversion. The new designs with the toggle, button, and checkbox overwhelmingly increased conversion from the original design.
With the team’s concentrated effort on increasing the overall success of the Authentic Membership, we focused on three goals:
Increasing conversion through implementation on Authentic’s brand sites via widgets, banners, etc.
Encouraging retention through content strategy and Authentic’s brands’ user bases
Decreasing cancellation through clarifying the benefits lost through cancellation and compelling return offers
Additionally, constraints we had to keep in mind were legal requirements on specific language, especially when it involved sign up and cancellation, along with Shopify’s customization restrictions on modal or widget sizing and styling, particularly when a single design needed to look standard across all Authentic brands.
GOALS & CONSTRAINTS
With both conversion and cancellation in a much better place, the team’s focus has now turned to retention. For design, next steps include working with content strategists on aligning marketing and web experiences to target brand shoppers not part of the membership program, members at risk of canceling, and past members.
CURRENT STEPS
Working so collaboratively with a variety of other role specialists gave me a lot more hands-on insight into the entire process behind a product, which also helped me understand more preemptively the context I needed prior to beginning design work and the impact I should be aiming for.
Design-wise, I realized that sometimes problems don’t require complex solutions, and that a simple one may be the most effective. With this membership program, at least in our current state of design, it was much better to iterate on current best practices (ex. user behavior with the checkbox and toggle) rather than reinvent the wheel.
CURRENT PERSONAL LEARNINGS