ISSA Certification Churn Research
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Role: UX Researcher
Company: Xplor Technologies
Project Timeline: 6 weeks
Methods: Contextual Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Maze Survey
PROJECT CONTEXT
TrueCoach is a Business Management Software (BMS) that helps personal trainers manage clients, create training programs, and market their coaching business all in one place.
TrueCoach is affiliated with a personal training certification program called ISSA (International Sports Sciences Association), an organization that offers education and certification programs for personal training, nutrition, and specialized fitness coaching.
This partnership designated TrueCoach as their officially recommended app to newly certified coaches, and one of the benefits provided to these coaches is an extended 90 day free trial.
RESEARCH PROBLEM
TrueCoach offers a 90 day extended free trial with ISSA affiliated customers; however, those customers have a significantly lower conversion rate for becoming a full user once their free trial period ends.
20%
14 Day Free Trial User Retention
10%
ISSA Free Trial User Retention
The conversion rate for the general population is about 20% after free trial, ISSA customers are less than 10%.
Given these low conversion rates, we hoped to get a better understanding of where they were at in their business journey by speaking with customers currently utilizing the free trial, and learn what opportunities we may have to better nurture their experience to improve user retention.
RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
By understanding where ISSA-affiliated users are at in their business journey when they participate in the free trial, as well as learn what features are most important for them to be successful as a new coach, we will identify missed opportunities to nurture their product adoption during the free trial period and improve conversion rates.
RESEARCH PROCESS
Survey
Create survey in Maze
Send to target audience
Data Synthesis
Affinity mapping
Survey analysis
Implementation
Execute on improvements
Measure impact
1
2
3
4
5
6
Research Planning
Create research plan
Stakeholder alignment
Identify target audience
User Interviews
Create Interview Script
Recruit participants
Ideation
Review findings with team
Identify high impact improvements
Add action items to product road map
PROJECT PHASES
Discover
Build empathy by understanding the needs, goals, and motivations of people within the free trial by speaking with customers currently in the trial, as well as customers who have recently churned.
Define
Define common user archetypes, pain points, task flows, and missed opportunities in the current product offerings. Sync with stakeholders to review findings and identify high impact areas and action items.
Develop
Ideate improvements to the current state experience based on user research findings. Sync with UX Designers, Product Managers, and Engineering Product Development Teams to align on roadmap and implementation strategy.
Deliver
Implement changes to current product, establish baseline data points to track user sentiment and measure impact of changes and improvements.
DISCOVER
RESEARCH PLANNING
Stakeholder Alignment
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Set up kickoff meeting with stakeholders to define research goals, align on participant demographic, and establish project timelines.
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Created research proposal to determine research phases and methods that will be used within the scope of this project (Contextual Interviews, Survey, Affinity Mapping, Prioritization Workshop).
Target Users
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Current TrueCoach customers with ISSA certifications that participated in the 90 day free trial
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Recently churned TrueCoach customers with ISSA certifications that participated in the 90 day free trial
RESEARCH METHODS
Maze Survey
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We recruited 83 participants for two surveys about their ISSA certification and general experience using TrueCoach during the 90 day free trial.
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Survey questions focused on user demographics, general sentiment about the free trial and onboarding, as well as what features made them want to try TrueCoach.
Zoom Remote Interviews
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4 customers from the survey study participated in paid interviews.
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Interviews focused on their onboarding experience, what their ISSA certification means for their business goals, and how a business management software can help them be successful as newly accredited coach.
RESEARCH GOALS
We asked TrueCoach customers with ISSA certifications how they currently feel about their experience using the app in the 90 day free trial period, as well as ISSA certified users that recently churned.
We wanted to learn:
What demographics typically represent our coaches in the trial period (such as monthly revenue, clients, etc).
What point of their business journey they’re currently at when they start the free trial.
What features made them want to try TrueCoach, as well as what coaching software features are important for them to be successful.
What features are missing from TrueCoach that make customers not wish to continue their subscription beyond the 90 day free trial period.
Learn why people may not convert to full users, and learn whether a post-trial nurture campaign could help users convert if they’re not quite ready.
ISSA FREE TRIAL USER DEMOGRAPHICS
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Customers in our free trial period were typically in their 20’s and 30’s.
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Typically manage around 2-5 clients
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70% had other incomes outside of coaching
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Make approximately $500 or less each month from coaching
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Were most likely ISSA certified for less than 1 year, with the majority being certified less than 6 months.
PERSONAS
WHAT WE LEARNED
Given the smaller scopes of their client base, income, and age, ISSA free trial coaches were likely to be less mature in their business journey, and were typically newly integrating into a formalized personal training career.
Most participants felt they were just beginning their business journey with their ISSA certification.
Participants all had clients before starting their trial, and onboarded them to their program within a few days of signing up.
In most cases, True Coach was the first fitness app they had used.
Coaches in this trial also all seemed to be actively trying to market themselves and procure more clients
How might we support people who may be new to coaching professionally, or trying to grow in their coaching career by obtaining an ISSA certification?
How might we ease them into feeling comfortable using a software to mange clients when they are used to managing them in person?
IMPORTANT FEATURES TO BE SUCCESSFUL
To better understand our customer's motivations and goals for seeking out a coaching platform, we asked our participants to share:
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What coaching software features are important to them to be successful in their coaching business.
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What features are missing from TrueCoach that make customers not wish to continue their subscription beyond the 90 day trial period.
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How confident they felt onboarding to TrueCoach, creating their first program, and generally managing their business.
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How TrueCoach can proactively support their needs when they are learning how to navigate a coaching software for the first time.
KEY FINDINGS
Program Building and Nutrition Tracking Core Functionalities ISSA coaches need to be successful in their business needs.
People in the free trial period are typically trying out a coaching platform for the first time, and are focusing on features that make it easy to quickly establish a program and track client progress/nutrition as their first time working with a formalized software.
Coaches generally felt ready in their business journey after receiving their certification, but felt that they could use more educational resources, product support, and coaching strategies when they're just starting out on TrueCoach.
Survey data indicated that ISSA certified coaches were not churning due to feeling unready in their business journey, but from lack of support finding clients and setting up their business on our platform, and feeling that the price was hard to justify without the clients to support their costs.
When we asked users what made them feel less confident using TrueCoach for their coaching/business needs, participants expressed difficulty finding clients themselves and the platform having a steep learning curve.
Participants expressed that having more marketing features to find more clients is something we could do to help them feel ready in their business journey, as well as improving the coach app and having discounted rates when they’re just starting out.
RESEARCH SUMMARY
People generally felt that they were doing the free trial of TrueCoach because they were ready in their business journey as an ISSA-certified coach. Despite feeling ready, most participants still felt it could be helpful for TrueCoach to take a pro-
active approach in sharing education and marketing opportunities to grow their business, as justifying the cost of the platform with only a handful of clients was a significant cause for churn.
Most people didn't feel like there was anything crucial missing in TrueCoach to discourage them from subscribing post-trial.
This indicates that it’s not necessarily a lack of features that may be causing ISSA coaches to churn, but simply a lack of feeling support in growing their coaching business, or feeling generally overwhelmed as a coach starting a more formalized business for the first time.
DEFINE
For people not wishing to continue using TrueCoach after their trial, the main reasons were price, but also a lack of awareness of existing features
People in the trial would benefit the most from improved discovery of features they need to be successful in their coaching goals.
Having a more hands-on approach to make their onboarding more personalized to their coaching needs could be helpful with this (ie. a weight loss coach getting more resources for the nutrition features we offer).
People generally had a positive experience onboarding to TrueCoach, and felt that the functionality met their needs enough to make them consider being a customer after their trial ended.
Overall, customers in both the surveys and interviews were very satisfied with their free trial experience. Of the people who weren’t, it was mainly due to not feeling confident building their first programs.
Are there opportunities for us to be proactive in reaching out to these users before they encounter a problem in our platform, such as a personalized check-in from a member of our support/sales team?
People in the trial were early in their professional coaching journey being accredited through ISSA, typically only having a few clients and no experience with coaching software.
Providing customers in this trial with more coaching resources is key to retaining them, as one of their main motivators for seeking out TrueCoach is to establish trust in their clients as a trained professional.
A post-trial nurture campaign could also be helpful for coaches who may just not feel ready yet to subscribe to our platform, as it could give them resources to eventually take that step forward
in their career.
The most-requested resource from missing features in the surveys as well as the user interviews were having more opportunities to market themselves as a coach to new clients.
One of the main motivators for signing up with this trial is the customer feeling ready to take the initiative to brand themselves as a trained professional.
How can we support these customers in engaging new clients and marketing themselves?
Are there opportunities that we can encourage them with post-trial, such as unlocking more networking opportunities to grow their business once they’ve converted to a full user?
DEVELOP & DELIVER
Stakeholder Research Shareout
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Synced with stakeholders to review research findings and determine high impact areas by facilitating a prioritization workshop.
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Collaborated with Product Managers, UX Design, and Customer Success leads on implementation strategies.
From these changes, we predicted that we would see an increase of free trial retention from ISSA users.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS COLLABORATION
Weekly Customer Check-ins with Product Support
ISSA coaches struggled with the initial set up on TrueCoach, specifically having trouble creating their first workout on the Program Builder and finding tutorials.
To reduce this pain point, we want to implement more pop up messages in Intercom (our customer support interface) to proactively create a touchpoint with support for ISSA free trial users.
Creating modals in the dashboard to improve discovery of features that were commonly used by ISSA certified coaches to, like nutrition tracking, would also encourage users to find help and support resources for a smoother onboarding.
NURTURE CAMPAIGN DURING AND AFTER TRIAL
Along with additional outreach through the UI and Intercom, we should revise our a nurture campaign to passively provide coaching resources to ISSA users in the free trial period, as well as outreach to people who recently churned.
These resources include the following information:
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Feature showcases that linked to help center article for features that are relevant to ISSA certifications (nutrition, sports medicine, etc).
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Ability to quickly set up a call with support when they're feeling stuck.
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Networking opportunities for remote coaching through meetups and affiliate platforms with TrueCoach.
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Coaching seminars and continuing education resources.
RESEARCH IMPACT
Support Ticket Reduction
By providing ISSA coaches more opportunities for weekly checkins with support, we expected to see fewer support requests for tasks that users complete during the onboarding flow. 2 months after implementation, the volume of support tickets created by ISSA users reduced considerably after nurture campaign and checkins were implemented.
Improved Engagement with Help Center Content
Additional modals and Intercom checkins will also drive traffic to product support articles from ISSA free trial users, as these checkins will provide them with more opportunities to engage with support resources. Traffic to help center content about setting up their first program increased 2 months after implementation of changes.
Increased User Retention
2 months after implementing UI modals and our nurture campaign, we retained 6% more ISSA free trial users that month than previous months.