MOLLIE
On-boarding Vision
Aligning a domain on a common goal by creating a customer-centric product vision.
Challenge
The COAR Domain at Mollie, which encompasses Customer Onboarding, Acquisition, and Retention, lacked a clear product vision. Despite having six teams working within the domain, there was no shared goal to drive each team towards a 10x improvement of their product. My objective was to establish a unified vision that could align these teams and define where we, as a domain, aim to be in the next five years, with a focus on the customer's perspective.
Approach
To pave the way for a successful onboarding journey, I began by establishing a shared understanding of our target audience - small to medium single-serving merchants. Once we were aligned on this, my next step was to identify the specific problem we aimed to solve. This was crucial in shaping our vision of success and ensuring a clear understanding of what we needed to achieve through the onboarding process.
Outcome
Through a combination of interviews, journey mapping, and research studies, I collected valuable insights that enabled me to clearly define the problem we were facing. Having identified the issue, I then developed a solution in the form of a customer journey vision. This served as the basis for guiding the product designer in the domain to create a powerful visual prototype together that drew on these insights and deliverables.
Role
Senior Product Designer
Services
Strategy & Ideation, User Research, Customer Journey Creation, Vision Definement
Team
Scott Albert, Deanna Sim, Eugenia Ruffo
Process
Discovery
Interviews with stakeholders
To begin my process, I conducted interviews with COAR stakeholders to gain insights into their pain points, product vision, and any previous research that could inform the project. Through conversations with Engineer Leads, Product Owners, and several Product Managers, I quickly discovered a common challenge: a lack of alignment around the customer journey and goals.
One of Mollie's unique selling propositions was its promise of quick and easy onboarding within 15 minutes. While this was a fantastic offer for our customers, the definition of "onboarded" was unclear, both internally and from the customer's perspective. After identifying this issue, I recognized that the next step was to create a shared understanding of the customer journey and goals within the team.
Take aways
There was a lack of alignment among our teams regarding the onboarding journey's goal for merchants.
Our stakeholders prioritized conversion to fulfill the promise of quick onboarding.
We needed to consider Mollie's future not just as a payment service provider but also as a financial offerings product.
Defining a customer journey
As a facilitator, I organized a customer journey workshop that included key stakeholders from various disciplines, such as the Product Owner, Product Managers, Lead Engineer, Product Designer, and Data Analyst. The inclusion of multiple disciplines was crucial to ensure that our journey creation process considered multiple perspectives within the company rather than one.
By creating this journey, we gained a clear understanding of our customers' experiences and goals during the onboarding process. This exercise allowed us to be better equipped to meet our customers' needs and ensure an optimal user experience.
Take aways
The end goal for users is to have their first out-payment processed, whereas the business considers it to be the moment the first live payment is made.
We identified three phases in the onboarding journey that Mollie has either failed to consider or has not fully addressed.
Mapping out the customer experience
After implementing our new customer journey, we analyzed the current experience to identify customer pain points and needs. By mapping out channels, we gained a clear understanding of areas needing improvement in our current process. Yet, while this exercise was helpful in pinpointing flaws, it did not provide us with the necessary insights to develop a product that is 10 times better than what we currently offer.
To gain a better understanding of what was missing from our merchants' needs, we decided to conduct further research. We recognized that it was essential to focus on our merchants' requirements rather than analyzing what we already had. As a result, we embarked on a research project to gather insights from our merchants.
Take aways
Relying solely on internal research did not provide us with a comprehensive understanding of the direction our product needs to take.
User research - diary studies
In collaboration with our User Researcher Manager, Deanna Sim, we conducted five diary studies with our merchants to gain a deeper understanding of the performance of our onboarding process. Our interviews began with a set of introductory questions aimed at understanding our customers' behavioral needs and motivations for using Mollie.
Through these questions, we discovered that one of the common expectations of our customers is to receive guidance from Mollie in making the best decisions for their needs. Our core group of merchants consists mostly of small to medium-sized businesses run by new entrepreneurs who may lack knowledge of their payment service needs. Armed with this information, we used it as a key consideration in defining our problem statement and determining next steps.
Take aways
Merchants expect Mollie to guide them through the onboarding process.
Merchants trust Mollie's expertise over their own knowledge.
Merchants feel apprehensive and unsure about what payment services will be best for their company.
Define
Defining our problem
Upon recognizing the importance of our customers' success, we revisited the customer journey to determine how we currently facilitate this. Our analysis revealed that a significant portion of our journey falls within the provide phase, where we require merchants to submit information to utilize Mollie's services without any potential risk.
Despite Mollie's unique selling point of onboarding within 15 minutes, our actual onboarding average is 30 days. This is due to the numerous forms of risk we must account for when assessing a merchant, particularly as our business grows. While essential for the business, it is not the user's objective to be evaluated accordingly.
If Mollie aims to eliminate the risk element from its onboarding, we must question ourselves: "What does an optimal onboarding experience entail for a merchant?"
Problem statement
Mollie's onboarding process is currently centered around internal issues, particularly those related to risk management, which arise from our business operations.
As a result, we have overlooked the customer's perspective and experience. Our primary objective is to facilitate the user's initial out-payment as quickly as feasible, which is exclusively determined by the risk level of our merchants.
If this can be accomplished within our 15-minute timeframe, it will no longer be our primary goal. Without the element of risk, we lose our objective.
Current
Onboarding = Risk anaylsis
ideal
Onboarding = Set up for success
validation
Internal reflection
We took a retrospective look at the domain's last two years of work and assessed the impact it had on the customer experience. Specifically, we validated whether the products developed during that period were geared towards enhancing the customer experience.
Getting started
Business autocomplete
Website requirements
HRMC for UK
VAT Improvement
Open banking
Rememdiation
Integrate bank transfer
Country of activity
DACH registration
MCC dropdown
BSN blackout
Onfido
UK launch
Proof of ownership
Retrieve data from IDs
Bank verification
Exit strategy
Stakeholders page
Less than 50%
Direct improvement of user experience.
5 out of 19
Are a customer problem first.
Only 36%
Focused on setting up
the customer for success.
shift of focus
Using our new Customer Journey, we believed our best efforts would be to focus on the Set Up phase.
Solution ideation
Personalized packages
By pinpointing the business objectives of our merchants, we can leverage our existing data and Mollie product suite to curate customized profile packages. This approach will enable our users to achieve the best possible ROI in their business, leveraging the robust analytics that Mollie has at its disposal.
Our one-click guidance ensures that merchants are steered towards utilizing Mollie to its maximum potential.
Delivery
Onboarding vision journey
We collaborated with stakeholders to establish a fresh customer journey that centers around the concept of equipping our merchants with custom profile packages. This updated approach is designed to harmonize the needs of our customers with the future trajectory of Mollie as a financial platform.
Vision
Current
Next steps
We are currently in the process of reviewing our work with leadership to obtain their approval. Once we receive their sign off, our next steps will be to create a functioning prototype that will bring our vision to life.
To accomplish this, I will be working alongside Eugenia, the COAR domains product designer, using Figma as our tool of choice. Our goal is to then test this prototype with a select group of merchants.
Feel free to reach out.
I am always open to new opportunities. Send me message.
