Acquia Cloud has been the flagship product since the company’s early days. Acquia was founded in 2007 to fulfill a distinct market need for technical users: a platform to host and manage Drupal sites.
A free trial existed for Acquia Cloud, but it was not openly marketed or managed by anyone at the company. Given the amount of signups trials was getting, I wanted to dive deeper into determining if this piece was a worthwhile investment for the company.
Objectives
Wanting to learn more, I gained access to the raw data from our free trial sign up forms and manually matched them against the reporting in our internal sales and marketing tools, Salesforce and Marketo. It was then when I started to uncover the disjointed relationship between these systems.
Contrary to internal assumptions, high-profile enterprise prospects were regularly signing up for the free trial. However, based on user feedback from the exit survey, the free trial was delivering an over-all poor experience. Discussing this with company executives, they determined that they wanted to me to lead a team to create design concepts to guide the vision for a better free trial experience to directly compete against our competitors in the mid-market. This project became a company-wide initiative and a quarterly VFO (Vital Few Objective).
I formed a collaborative team to execute on this initiative, including representatives from Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and Finance. I facilitated several workshops with the team to define and align on: our target mid-market customer and Acquia’s product differentiators for those personas.
In collaboration with my team, we undertook the task of defining the project scope within Acquia's extensive range of products and services. This strategic step was essential in providing clarity and focus, enabling us to make informed design and research decisions. The scope of the project centered around the following key aspects:
Target Audience: Our primary focus was on mid-market customers, including notable organizations such as the Humane Society, Yale, Boston Herald, and the ACLU. By identifying this specific audience segment, we could tailor our solutions to meet their unique needs.
Product Offering: Our project scope revolved around the standard subscription size of Acquia Cloud Standard. By honing in on this particular product, we could streamline our efforts and ensure consistency in our approach.
Purpose: The project's objective was to enhance the solo evaluator experience. We aimed to cater to low-touch customers who do not require on-site visits but still seek a seamless and user-friendly experience. Understanding this purpose allowed us to prioritize features and functionalities accordingly.
By clearly defining these parameters within the project scope, we were able to align our efforts and make well-informed decisions that catered specifically to mid-market customers utilizing Acquia Cloud Standard subscriptions, with a focus on enhancing the solo evaluator experience.
Once the objectives were established, I proceeded to design comprehensive end-to-end user flows for the initiative. This encompassed developing the go-to-market strategy, crafting compelling copywriting, and creating branded assets to enhance the Acquia Cloud hosting and Drupal trial experience.
In addition to visual design elements, I also took on the task of designing and implementing guided tours within Acquia Cloud and Drupal. Leveraging the capabilities of Pendo, I developed interactive and informative guided tours to assist users in navigating and utilizing the platforms effectively.
By undertaking these design initiatives, I aimed to optimize the user experience and ensure a seamless onboarding process for users of Acquia Cloud and Drupal. The end-to-end user flows, combined with carefully crafted copywriting and engaging branded assets, played a pivotal role in facilitating user understanding and adoption of these platforms.
Results
Through our efforts, we achieved remarkable outcomes, resulting in substantial enhancements to the user experience. The key results obtained include:
Decreased Average Application Provisioning Time: We successfully reduced the average application provisioning time by approximately 97.6%. As a result, users experienced a significant reduction in the waiting period for installation, bringing it down from an average of 42 minutes to less than one minute. This substantial improvement in efficiency greatly enhanced user satisfaction and streamlined the onboarding process.
High User Completion Rate for "Getting Started" Guides: We achieved an impressive average user completion rate of 74% across all "Getting Started" guides implemented through Pendo. By providing interactive and informative guided tours, users were able to navigate the platforms with ease, leading to higher engagement and successful adoption of the features and functionalities offered.
Enhanced User Data Reporting and Salesforce Integration: We successfully implemented improvements to the user data reporting system, enabling seamless synchronization with our Salesforce records. This integration not only streamlined data management but also provided valuable insights and analytics, empowering our team to make data-driven decisions and enhance our overall business processes.
These results signify the positive impact of our initiatives on the user experience, efficiency, and data management. By reducing application provisioning time, improving user engagement through guided tours, and enhancing data reporting capabilities, we successfully improved the overall user satisfaction and streamlined processes within our organization.
HMP 2023
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