TL;DR

Tradie frustration from unsuccessful job bids leads to churn. To address this, we propose a habit-forming model that gamifies onboarding, helping tradies learn winning strategies for securing more jobs.

Intro

hipages is an online tradie marketplace, connecting homeowners with local trusted tradies – simplifying home improvement.  As part of the dynamic team at hipages, I spearheaded the initiative to enhance tradie engagement and reduce subscription churn.

Objective

Our primary goal was clear: by the end of FY23, we aimed to reduce subscription tradie churn by 10% while increasing early tenure tradie engagement by 5%.

My Role

I led the design of the team comprising a product manager, data analyst, content strategist, and five developers, I led the design process from discovery to production.

Discovery

Utilising the opportunity tree framework, we identified tradie pain points to uncover the most impactful opportunities aligned with our objectives:

  • Tradies undervalue the importance of their hipages profile.
  • Tradies anticipate consumer contact after accepting a lead while the majority of consumers don’t use the app and they close the web page after posting their job.

Through stakeholder workshops, user surveys, and data analysis, we identified critical success factors for tradies:

  • Professional profiles with images garner 68% more consumer attention.
  • Follow-up communication from tradies increases project inspections.
  • High ratings and recommendations boost job-winning probabilities by 84%.

Key Goals

  • Encourage profile updates.
  • Educate tradies on proactive consumer contact.
  • Establish a gamification framework to instill best practices.

Ideation

Conducting Design & Ideation Workshops, we solicited diverse perspectives to tackle the identified challenges:

  • Leveraged frameworks like Crazy 8s for idea generation.
  • Involved the marketing team in refining communication strategies.

User flow

Prototyping & Testing

With a focus on sustaining motivation and addressing context, we adopted the hook model to design engaging experiences:

  • Implemented nudges and checklists for profile completion.
  • Experimented with incentivised milestone achievements.

Results

  • Tradie engagement with hipages profiles surged by 36.6%.
  • Onboarding engagement escalated from 9.6% to 23.9%.
  • Habit-forming strategies led to a 5% increase in early tenure tradie claim rates.
  • Analysis indicated an 88% confidence in reducing churn by 5.3% among early tenure tradies.

Next Steps

In alignment with evolving business strategies, we plan to extend the habit-forming model in the next iterations to established users, further amplifying their success in job acquisition.