Designing a Tailored and Personalized Trial Experience

Team

Product design lead:
Sara Anderson

Product management:
Jeannie Wu

Engineering:
Mark Fox, Jiaxiang Liu

Design leadership:
Filippo Lovotti

Product leadership:
Brian My

Background

Currently, the Trial team manages two versions of our trial: Suite and Support. Initially, the Suite Trial aimed to provide a comprehensive experience, receiving the majority of our team's attention, resources, and research. However, as the Trial/Online Business team pivots towards serving the 1–49 company segment, we've realized that the Suite experience might be too costly and lacks the flexibility required by SMBs. Consequently, we've started directing resources towards developing our Support Trial. Yet, we're approaching a juncture where maintaining both trial versions might result in duplicated efforts and similar user experiences.

Current landing page

Vision

This project presents an opportunity for us to reevaluate and advocate for a unified, adaptable Trial, regardless of Suite or Support distinctions, shaped by trialists' online actions and intentions.

Our vision entails a versatile trial featuring effortlessly customizable content and experiences tailored for the 1-49 segment. The trial experience will be segmented based on company size, questionnaire responses, and recommended products/plans that align with their needs or aspirations.

Hypotheses

  • Personalization is key: Tailoring trial experiences based on trialists' behaviors and intent enhances engagement and conversion.

  • Simplification drives adoption: Simplifying content and experiences reduces trialist overwhelm and increases confidence in the product.

Project goals

  1. Create a singular, flexible trial experience tailored to the 1-49 segment's needs.

  2. Improve trial engagement and progression rates among 1–49 trialists.

  3. Increased confidence in Zendesk's suitability for small businesses.

  4. Reduce trial abandonment by simplifying content and experiences.

  5. Positioned Zendesk for future iterations toward a single, flexible trial experience irrespective of Suite or Support.

Redesigned flexible trial landing page

Design phase

  1. Develop personas representing various trialist profiles within the 1–49 segment.

  2. Design wireframes and prototypes for a unified trial experience based on segmentation logic derived from trial registration forms and intent questionnaires.

  3. Prioritize content customization and reordering based on trialists' preferences and needs.

  4. Ensure seamless integration of Support and Suite features within the unified trial experience.

Implementation phase

  1. Collaborate with development teams to implement the redesigned trial experience.

  2. Conduct usability testing to gather feedback and iterated on the design.

  3. Integrate trial segmentation logic to personalize trial experiences for different trialist segments.

  4. Roll out the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) phase, focusing on segmenting the Suite trial for 1–49 trialists based on questionnaire responses.

Success criteria

  • Increase win rate, average ARR @ win.

  • Higher percentage of trialists engaging with the product.

Logic

  1. Didn’t answer the questionnaire: Support Get Started Foundational Content + Explore chapter

  2. Specifies channels in questionnaire = chapter related content and specific channels will be displayed + ^ all of the above 

  • Chat = messaging and live chat chapter; Click it and ticket experience in content block on landing page 

  • Phone = no content today; Voice content block on landing page 

  • Email = no content today; email content block on landing page 

  • Help center = help center chapter; HC content block on landing page 

  • Social media = messaging and live chat chapter; Click it and ticket experience in content block on landing page

Intent questionnaire

Trialist selects email

Trialist skips questionnaire > default view

Trialist selects Help center, chat

Asset creation

The project scope included the development of seven brand-new blockframe assets.

  • Brand illustrations served as a temporary solution for the Trial landing page experiment.

  • These images were crafted by utilizing old and existing blockframes, simplifying them, updating them according to the new brand, and adding details to support the expressed capabilities.

  • The aim was to establish a cohesive look and feel for the product experience and visually enhance the conveyed concepts.

Design solution

Shift away from surfacing channels, such as email, chat, voice, and help center; and instead:

  • Utilize the trial landing page as an introduction to Zendesk’s capabilities.

  • Surface in-product interactions that let trialists experience built-in interactions such as exploring the agent workspace, viewing sample tickets, or starting a chat.

  • Direct trialists to their pre-configured sample help center and third party product integrations.

Trialist selects email

Trialist selects Help center, chat

Next steps

  • Roll out the experience to the 1–49 segment.

  • Continue to iterate and refine based on user feedback and data insights will drive ongoing improvements to the trial experience.