Improve merchants' account verification process

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Role:

Role: Conduct discovery, connect insights to product requirements, design execution

Outcome:

20% decrease in account related support contacts

14% increase in the number of verified merchants

UX process:

Discovery research Design execution x-functional collaboration

Problem space

Merchants often unaware of required account verification until they reach their initial transaction limit, leading to account disruptions and high support tickets volume

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 Our team’s role

Our team’s objective is to ensure merchants can process transactions and operate their businesses smoothly without interruption.

1️⃣ Discovery research

Support case analysis

After reviewing 300+ support cases, we found that the lack of user awareness regarding account verification was the biggest contributor to support volume.

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1:1 Merchant interviews

To gain a deeper understanding, we conducted 1:1 interviews with merchants who had contacted customer support regarding verification.

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Merchant’s problem

They typically ignore the verification button until they reach their transaction limit, at which point their account becomes blocked.

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Business impact

Verification issues lead to frustrated merchants contacting support. Unresolved cases often result in customer churn.

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Discovery insights

Our discovery: 32% of merchants ignored verification until blocked, resulting in merchant frustration, higher support volume and risking churn.

💡 Business opportunity

Providing clearer and more contextual information about the verification prompt would increase the number of merchants to complete it earlier, this will reducing support contacts and churns.

Current solution
Current solution

2️⃣ Ideation

Defining product requirements: To better emphasise the importance of verification, the transaction limit component needs to include:

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3️⃣ Validation

We used A/B testing to test our hypothesis, compare the existing verification process with a new design that included a redesigned transaction limit component.

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Vision 🅱️ resulted in 35% increase in conversion to successful account verification

4️⃣ Iteration

While the initial results were positive, the initial approach was reactive and could be easily missed. To enhance impact, we iterated on the component by:

  • Streamlining content for faster understanding.
  • Displaying estimated days until the transaction limit to create proactive awareness.
  • Providing a verification time estimate to manage user expectations.
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Strategic Placements: Our team also experimented with different placements of the verification prompt to identify the most effective touchpoints for creating user awareness.

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4️⃣ Final solution

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🎯 Home Screen: 

A prominent verification banner sits at the top, immediately connect verification status to all business management tools.

💵 Payout Screen: 

The verification banner is integrated into the payout view. This creates urgency by connecting verification directly to the user's ability to receive funds.

5️⃣ Impact

As of end of February 2021, we achieved a 14% increase in new merchants completing account verification before reaching their transaction limit. Leading to a significant 20% decrease in verification-related support contacts. 

14% +

of all merchants have verified their account before reaching transaction limit

20%

decrease in verification-related support contacts. 

Higher

retention among all new merchants in the first 60 days after signup