Background
Our Partnerships team connects businesses & their customers with hipages trusted tradies.
This year the goal was to increase the number of enrolled and actively engaged tradies in partner programs.
Wait. Who is hipages?
hipages is the online platform that connects Australian homeowners with trusted tradies to simplify home improvement.
Period
1 quarter
2023
My Role
Sole Product Designer leading the Partnerships team.
Stakeholders
Team Lead, Sponsor, Service, Retention, Sales, Marketing teams
Team
Product Manager, Engineering Manager,
Tech Lead,
Data Analyst,
Marketing Manager,
Additional Developers
Tools
At this point in time, the Partnerships team had 3 major Partners:
After learning that tradies who are part of a Partner Program has the lowest likelihood of churning (1.4%), this data led us to believe that it was due to the jobs that partnerships bring that helped tradies stay with us for longer as they liked the job leads they were getting.
This led to the Partnerships team strategy, where our team wanted to focus on increasing our partners so that we can bring in more high quality jobs.
Because of this the team strategy focused on expanding its partnership offering by building a new program called PartnerPro which allowed us to take on more partnerships with different businesses at speed. Tradies who have at least a 4 out of 5 Star Rating on hipages are eligible to join PartnerPro as part of their subscription.
Problems:
We had a rapidly growing of tradies joining the current partner programs but we didn’t have enough jobs to meet the demand.
Our partners' offers were not scalable & reusable for future partners.
Objective:
To create a scalable Partner Product (called Partner Essentials - the basic offer) that will allow us to bring more partner jobs in through our new business partners.
Value Proposition
By setting this objective, we assumed:
Tradies want to get more Partner jobs because they are high-quality jobs.
We will have businesses interested in partnering with us ongoingly and even offering to pay us.
Tradies will continue to have low churn rate by engaging with our new partner leads leading to high claim rate & increased ROI.
The goal was first to understand why these key user groups would care about this new offer, what value it would give them:
The tradies
Partner businesses
Partner consumers
How can we ensure that both Partners and tradespeople in the Partner Program will appreciate the value of our creations?
MV(Q)P
To be able to launch a Minimum Viable (Quality) Product, we needed to understand the basic requirements to enable or build before launching any product offer, learning from our exsisting individual Partner Programs.
What is the most basic valuable product that we can confidently deliver the fastest with the least effort, without any incurring costs for both the partner and the tradies?
Assumptions & risks
Having gained a deeper understanding of this new product offering opportunity, we documented both our assumptions and the riskier ones.
What assumptions pose the highest risk and could potentially lead to the failure of this initiative?
To test them, we chose different methods down the track (user interviews, MVP test, Usability test and silent release) to see if we need to iterate, pivot or kill this idea.
Early on we tested the following:
Desirability assumptions - they were disproven. Tradies were keen to join in and wanted these high-intent jobs.
Viability assumptions - could hardly be tested. We needed to launch a silent release & MVP to be able to achieve that.
Feasibility assumptions - were disproven. We designed each element and code to be scalable.
Usability assumptions - were disproven. After many rounds of copy changes, tradies were able to understand everything.
02
At this stage, we had a preliminary concept of what the user journey might entail.
We examined four distinct types of end-to-end user journeys:
Partner’s customer:
Browsing a product -> posting a job on hipages -> finding a tradies -> completing the job
Partner Program tradie:
Learning about the new program -> signing up -> claiming job leads -> completing jobs
Partner:
Hearing about the new partnership offer -> signing contract -> ongoing nurturing
Trained about new partner product -> ongoingly keeping them up to date
hipages teams:
For each user cohorts, we mapped out the following:
Current journey steps & New steps
Key ‘Aha’ Moments - user recognising value
Outputs - assets that we needed to create
Outcomes - what success meant for each
Delivery Plan
Through a comprehensive grasp of the requirements for the end-to-end experience, the PM and I collaborated to craft user stories. These stories facilitated the estimation of each development task and provided insights into the potential roadmap, aiding in stakeholder buy-in.
They encompassed tasks addressing the following inquiries:
Partner’s customer:
How will the customer get the job done as easily and as quick as possible?
What happens when a partner sells one vs multiple products - may need many different types of services?
Tradie Setup:
How might we invite our top-rated tradies to this new product in the right time?
What is going to be the eligibility criteria?
What will the GTM & onboarding look like?
How might we set them up for success? Eg. educate them about each partner’s products & installation?
How will we nurture them ongoingly?
hipages teams:
How can marketing, legal, services and sales team be able to make it a success?
Partner:
How might we set up each new partner for success, including their staff so they know how to advocate for hipages tradies in-store and online?
What will the GTM look like?
How will we nurture them ongoingly?
IKEA GQ Consumer journey
IKEA is one of hipages’ partners, where at this time, our tradies only serviced for full kitchen planning & installation jobs.
Problem we had:
IKEA jobs had a high 0 claim rate for non-full kitchen category jobs (smaller jobs) compared to data exluding these jobs (on avg. 91% claim rate) so we needed to look for options to increase claim rate for these also.
How can we find the right tradies for small jobs (non-kitchen jobs) posted by the consumer?
When IKEA consumers posted a job on hipages, not all should have gone into a large volume type of category like Kitchen Installation or Planning. These small jobs should have gone to a different category as they required a much smaller job, eg. handyman, which resulted in IKEA program tradies not claiming the job.
Opportunity:
Sign a second (Partner Essentials Package) contract, so we can redirect their small jobs to PartnerPro tradies in other categories.
Get Quotes - Exploration
Assumptions:
There are enough tradies who would be eligible for PartnerPro membership in each 0 claimed IKEA job category who might be interested in claiming those jobs
PartnePro eligible tradies are going to increase the claim rate of 0 claim IKEA jobs
IKEA is happy for us to move these categories out of IKEA Tradie base
IKEA is happy for us to use cobranding for the new journey
There is enough eligible PartnerPro tradies location coverage to cover IKEA 0 claim jobs
We can tag IKEA jobs with other categories and still keep them as an IKEA job
Small jobs are less attractive in regional areas than in metro areas.
Consumers are going to post a job in the right category
Get Quotes - Design
Following discussions with internal stakeholders and engaging with IKEA representatives to validate our assumptions, I led an ideation session with my team to design a new customer journey. Together, we generated several ideas for enhancement and experimentation.
Subsequently, we developed the final IKEA Get Quotes pages, designed strategically for reusability and scalability with future partners. These pages aimed to cater to IKEA Planning, Installation, and other smaller tasks.
Lastly, we launched the new Partner Product offer to our first Partner Essential Partner, IKEA.
For an overview of the improved consumer job completion rate and tradie engagement on these jobs, please scroll to the bottom.
🚀
IKEA Website
Before
hipages Landing page
After
hipages Landing page
Final prototype
I produced the IKEA-hipages landing page for customers to easily find the kitchen installers. Upon the completing the design system update to match the new branding, the team updated the interface to match the latest visual language.
Tradie (PartnerPro)
Program journey
What we needed to explore:
What's the best way to enable suitable tradies to seamlessly join the program at the appropriate time and in the correct manner?
Within a week, I ran an ideation workshop with my team and the key stakeholders to come up with some ideas.
Then I refined them and due to the tight deadline to launch it just before Christmas, I booked in a few interviews where numerous assumptions awaited validation.
Hypothesis 1 - Tradies are interested in the enrolment program
The information presented on the screen will capture the interest of tradies, enticing them to join the program.
They will comprehend the benefits and perceive the program as valuable, finding it suitable for their needs.
Hypothesis 2 - Tradies will sign up regardless that there are no partners yet
Tradies will be eager to join the program even in the absence of partners, demonstrating a willingness to wait for leads to come in.
These leads will be particularly appealing to tradies due to their high-intent nature.
Hypothesis 3 - Tradies will find the enrolment page
Tradies will find the enrolment page without a GTM communication.
Summary
Due to the tight deadline, we got the feedback of two electricians who specialize in EV charger installation to evaluate the new PartnerPro Self-enrollment experience. They were asked to assume the role of newly discovering the program, which had been recently released to eligible tradies.
Who is a PartnerPro?
PartnerPro tradies will be specifically selected as our best-performing hipages tradies to apply to our new partner program launching in the upcoming weeks. They will be able to claim job leads from our new partners in the Partner Essentials package.
Eligibility criteria:
ABN verified
GST registered
4+ star rating on hipages
10+ customer recommendations from hipages
Key actionable takeaway
The interviews revealed some sections of the Self-enrollment flow were unclear and lacked sufficient explanation, prompting the need for improvement. Despite scheduling challenges and a few cancellations, we managed to speak with two tradies, which proved beneficial for refining the pages.
Observation
In general, most tradies grasped the essence of the new membership and expressed enthusiasm to participate. We noted that the majority of tradies desired access to a comprehensive list of our partner organisations and the job categories they offer.
As we are currently not launching with partners, we cannot provide this information.
Traditionally, none of the tradies comprehended the terms displayed, such as "PartnerPro," "Premium jobs," "Partner," and "PartnerPro Hub."
Most tradies accurately predicted the subsequent steps after each page was presented. However, there was confusion among all tradies regarding the appearance of job leads and the timing of their availability.
All tradies appreciated the exclusivity of the selection process, feeling valued and distinct. They believed this exclusivity would enhance their competitive advantage, particularly over non-professional tradies.
While tradies were willing to permit consumers to utilize hipages payment if necessary, many had not yet utilized it and were uncertain about associated surcharges.
All tradies were comfortable consenting to the PartnerPro Code of Conduct and expressed eagerness to receive communications regarding the upcoming PartnerPro release.
Overall, they were eager to participate.
Test 2
- Silent release with a small cohort (Quantitative) -
How might we iterate to first raise awareness among tradies, then invite eligible tradies to the PartnerPro program in a timely and appropriate manner, while also motivating ineligible tradies to enhance their profiles to become eligible for participation?
Test 3
- Membership Wall Usability test (Quantitative)-
We opted for iteration, guided by the following hypothesis:
We believed that inviting eligible tradies to join PartnerPro at the time when they accept a PartnerPro job (sent by Partner Essential partner consumers - eg. IKEA) as a Membership wall, will result in tradies joining more rapidly and becoming engaged in Partnerships.
We did a usability testing with five PartnerPro eligible tradies to validate the concept of the Membership wall flow and pinpoint areas for enhancement.
Our aim was to uncover any aspects of the process in need of refinement. During the interviews, we made incremental design adjustments to further enhance the experience.
Insights
Pro:
Majority of them were keen to join
AND excited to get high-intent jobs
Con:
Confusing T&Cs
Not enough details
No partner yet
Not sure if it’s free
Test 4
- Live Experiment with a small cohort (Quantitative) -
Our hypothesis was:
We hypothesized that by offering a clear pathway to eligibility, tradies who are currently ineligible for PartnerPro may feel encouraged or motivated to join. This would result in increased engagement with the article and requests for recommendations on how to become eligible, ultimately leading to zero angry calls to service.
Below is a detailed plan for post-experiment follow-up.:
Live experiment results
Low claim rate
Sadly, many tradies were not interested in the jobs due to poor job description and small size.
Lack of data
We encountered incomplete data that had not been configured correctly.
Technical Difficulties
From undisclosed bugs to incorrect backend configuration and overlooked edge cases, numerous issues arose.
No upset tradies
🎉
Our assumption was confirmed: ineligible tradies did not become upset, and many read the article.
We understood that if we were to launch to all users, it would likely be successful if all technical bits got fixed.
We’ve learnt, iterated and went live.
After encountering various challenges, we made adjustments to the backend, data lakes, and revised the copy on the Enrolment page. Eventually, we launched it to both eligible and ineligible tradies.
Following the launch of the new Tradie Partner Program in April ‘24, during the three weeks after IKEA signed an agreement with hipages to redirect all non-full kitchen jobs away from IKEA Kitchen categories (and into more suitable categories serviced by PartnerPro), their customers began posting their first jobs, where we witnessed a significant surge in tradie engagement, surpassing our expectations.
67%
(= 148 tradies)
of those who viewed the enrolment page proceeded to sign up upon encountering the Membership Wall, a rate higher than anticipated.
After
30%
of our zero claims were small jobs this year in April 2024.
Before
56%
of our zero claims were small jobs last year in April 2023.
Within two weeks of launching the Partner Essential Product user journey on April 12th, following the commencement of IKEA customers posting their initial jobs in non-full kitchen categories, we observed a significant uptick in job claim engagement.
Before
86%
IKEA Installation jobs with claims in the same month the previous year.
After
92%
IKEA Installation jobs with claims - Highest average claim ever for Installation jobs.
I had the opportunity to lead a project focused on bringing in high-quality job opportunities (consumers already purchased the products and needed to get the job done) for skilled tradies, ensuring they could grow their work and build reputation.
Throughout the project, we improved on the importance of alignment to prevent misunderstandings, that happened at the beginning, particularly among our remote team members. We prioritised clear communication to mitigate the pressure of deadlines and language barriers.
Additionally, we realised the value of multiple incremental experimentation, conducting live tests with a small user group to gather authentic feedback on new features. This iterative process significantly enhanced the user experience, proving invaluable during the refinement phase.
Given more time, I would have explored further strategies to boost sign-up and claim rates through behaviour study to support the ongoing need for innovation and adaptation.