ONBOARDING AFRICA
Simplifying our onboarding experience to reduce churn and improve conversion across Africa
my Role
Collaborated with the design manager as a product designer cross-functionally on the UX, product, customer support, and engineering teams.
TEAM
Team of 2 product designers, a product manager, a UX writer, a product illustrator and engineers
YEAR
2024
TOOLS
Figma, Storybook
overview
We redesigned the Yellow Card onboarding and made changes to the userflows to reduce churn and improve conversion rates
scope
UI/UX, Wireframing, Prototyping, User Research, System Thinking
why we wanted to improve onboarding
Onboarding is the essential process through which customers are introduced to and guided through the process of creating an account. At Yellow Card, our onboarding serves as the first step to your financial journey as you become familiar with the features, functionalities, and security measures. Think of it as the first impression that sets the tone for a whole new experience—where simplicity, clarity, and financial inclusion converge to ensure customers feel confident and equipped to make their money move effortlessly.
According to a research by McKinsey, “The majority of banked customers, 67 percent, still say that they trust their bank more than fintech. However, trust in fintechs is growing, particularly among lower-income segments, with 51 percent of youth and mass-market customers saying they trust fintech about the same as they trust banks.”
So onboarding is super important in gaining the trust of customers in financial services. It sets the tone for future interactions between the customers, the product, and the company and, in a couple of minutes, influences a customer’s decision to become a regular.
"How might we improve how our customers onboard to reduce churn and improve conversion with localisation in mind for 20+ countries"
most customers abandon apps after first login
Retaining customers is extremely important for any company (especially product-led). In the fintech space, it becomes 10x more important as there is already a lot of competition, and new platforms popping up every month.
To quote GrooveHQ here, “There are two key milestones that need to be reached before a customer can reach their full value potential:
1. The moment they sign up for your product, and...
2. The moment they achieve their first "success" with your product
A disproportionate amount of customers churn will take place at stage (1) and later on between (1) and (2)
understanding the problem space
With the help of our UX researcher, we conducted usability testing, gathered feedback through surveys, and even monitored support channels to understand pain points and areas needing improvement. This customer-centric approach became the cornerstone of our redesign.
Around 20% of the users drop after installing the app. Moreover, the majority of the users that move forward also drop before completing the onboarding process. I identified a few significant problems with the current onboarding flow:
- Right from the splash screens, it is not clear what value offering Yellow Card offers and what our USPs are.
- Too many screens for flows that could be combined altogether into one screen based on similarities.
- The yellow background affected visual hierarchy and states on inputs like error messaging being red, as well as added cognitive load
- We never provided users with options to verify their phone numbers, which posed very major drop-off from OTP verification inconsistencies
- No form of localization, considering we are in over 20 different African markets
out with the old and in with the new
So what changed from the old and the new onboarding flow? Our success metric was for customers to sign up seamlessly and with the least amount of friction, ultimately shortening the steps and reducing the time to completion and conversion for customers.
The process aims not to be too time-consuming or complicated, resulting in customers dropping off or losing interest in our product; the main point here is to minimise the effort by customers to start using the product and also with the least amount of friction—you get to see the metrics currently as you go along reading.
little changes that brought it all together
From a favourite quote: "Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."We made little but impactful changes that made the account creation process really seamless and easy for customers with a touch of localisation.
- Introducing new brand visuals and illustrations to portray our brand tonality and identity — S/O to our Product Illustrator
- Bringing up the phone number early on in the flow to reduce drop-off and frustration from customers who might have meant to log in instead of creating a new account.
- Grouping requirement process that aligns with the same information to be provided — having the full name and Date of birth on one screen and having customers input their password and email address on another.
- Taking our customers along, seeing the progress of their onboarding, adding contextual help, and managing expectations for the duration of the process.
- Localized greetings for our different 20+ African customer demographics on the flow create a warm welcome for our new customers on their financial journey.
the results?
We have measured the tremendous impact of our onboarding overhaul, which has been nothing short of remarkable. Customers praise a job well done for listening and implementing substantial changes, and we witnessed a significant reduction in drop-off rates during onboarding as well as a decrease in the time to completion of the new onboarding flow. Customers not only appreciated the simplicity but also felt more confident in using our platform.
💡 From our metrics, we have recorded a 23% reduction in time it takes to complete the onboarding flow and also seeing a 4.4% increase in conversion rates.
Redesigning the onboarding had a positive impact on the user experience. The new onboarding flow had more conversion from installation to company registration.
wrapping up
The journey doesn’t end with a single redesign. We have embraced a culture of continuous iteration. Regular feedback loops, usability testing, and post-onboarding surveys help us stay in tune with our customers evolving needs, ensuring that our onboarding process remains an enjoyable and functional entity as they make their money moves through Yellow Card, trusting us with their financial freedom.
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