Design Sprint and Product Strategy: increasing acquisition by over 50% and repurchase by 32% with the help of Design
My Role
Senior Service Designer
Industry
Home Services
Main Skills
Design Sprint Facilitation, Product Strategy, Cross-functional Collaboration, UX Research, Conversion Optimisation, Journey Mapping, Stakeholder Management, Omnichannel Experience Design, Data-driven Decision Making, Design Leadership
The Basics
Getting to know the company
Escale Digital is a B2B2C company responsible for acquiring and converting leads for product sales in the areas of Home Services, Health, and Finance for the largest companies in Brazil and Latin America.
With a powerful Omnichannel conversion and acquisition strategy, the company generates new contracts for these companies by reducing acquisition costs and automating the purchasing journey for companies that do not have the necessary technology to do so.
Challenge
What was the product?
At that time, the biggest lead generator—and therefore the product with the largest number of Squads and collaborators—was the so-called “Plan Portal.” The Plan Portal is a product responsible for generating leads, generating purchase demand through indexed content on the subject, and also converting leads through an omnichannel journey that can be completed via Shopping Cart, WhatsApp, or telephone.
Challenge
Lack of direction and loss of leads
This product received thousands of users every day who were interested in our content or the products we were offering in the Home Service market. In addition, thousands of users also used the “plan comparison tool” to find the best phone plans for them.
The problem was that there were three squads (Portal, Comparator, and Shopping Cart), and none of them were aligned with the real needs of our product, or even with our product vision, resulting in a loss of 76% of the leads generated daily.
The challenge I was presented with was to solve the problem of declining conversion rates in the funnel stages. However, as the Service Designer responsible for the company, and after talking to the three PMs involved, I understood that our problem was a little earlier: we didn't know what our product was.
Design Sprint
Time to talk to everyone and co-create
I decided that all areas involved with the product in some way needed to talk to each other, because the recurring behaviour was always: the problem is area X, they are doing this!
So I decided that a co-creation Design Sprint was the best thing we could do to define together what our product would be and what our next steps would be.
However, to ensure that all sides were heard and present in some way, I first created a map of product stakeholders, based on their level of influence and how that influence impacted the product.
Design Sprint
Guest and participants in the Design Sprint
With the stakeholder map drawn up, it was easy to map and reach the people who were involved with our product in some way. However, not everyone needed to, or could, be involved in the co-creation process of our solution. Therefore, I divided participation into two stages: main guests and participants in the Design Sprint.
The Design Sprint guests would participate in the first day of the exhibition, talking about their role in the company, how they saw the product, and what problems and next steps they saw. A kind of guide for the team to use as an initial form of creation;
Those involved in the Design Sprint were the people who would actually create and co-create throughout the days of dynamics, actively participate, and propose what we were designing for the future of our product.
Design Sprint
Setting goals and agendas
One of the main points of a dynamic is to be able to define what will be done and why. A dynamic without a clear objective that does not fulfil its main role is an efficient waste of money and time for the company and its employees.
The Design Sprint methodology is closed, but we couldn't count on the participants' full day, nor did I think the methodology made sense at that moment. So I decided to make small adjustments to the agenda, ensuring activities that made sense for our context and would also help us achieve our goals.
Design Sprint
The dynamics: agenda, calendar, and materials developed
Even though I did not follow exactly what Design Sprint suggests in its conception, I used the same methodology of exploration, understanding of context, gathering of ideas, co-creation, and user validation to develop enough material to achieve our results.
To this end, over the course of several days, our employees were able to listen to users and stakeholders (many for the first time), understand the current problems and what we needed to achieve, and propose solutions and ideas for our product.
During the workshop, employees were divided into groups, deliberately taking them out of their comfort zone where they work all the time. In addition, I had help from a UX Researcher on my team to ensure that the online workshop ran smoothly and produced the best possible results.
Delivery
Strategy and Execution of Deliverables
The initial result was to generate an initial vision of our product, but what we achieved was so much greater than that, as the results generated ideas and projects that could be carried out, tested, and implemented over several sprints.
To ensure that I would not lose all the information and materials generated in such a co-creative manner, I decided to divide the deliverables and projects generated into two different development lanes: tactical and strategic.
Tactical Deliverables
A/B testing on user conversion in the Omnichannel channel
Initially, users were unable to switch conversion channels in the middle of the purchase process without having to restart the process in the new channel, which was raised as a theory as to why we were losing so many leads in the purchasing process during the Design Sprint.
To ensure that the A/B test would be done correctly, I created an experiment framework for the team to structure the A/B test, schedule how it would be conducted, and structure the findings.
In the end, the test was simple: create an exit during the shopping cart process that the user could use to be redirected to the purchasing process via WhatsApp or via phone call. The solution was to create a fake door to validate the result and then implement the new system if it was positive.
Tactical Deliverables
Lead re-engagement and repurchase rule
In addition, we also understood in Design Sprint that our results could be exponential through automated rules and strategies to re-engage leads who abandoned their shopping carts, as well as those who have already purchased a product from us, thereby increasing their initial package.
To do this, we designed a re-engagement and repurchase rule that was activated and generated different triggers, as well as a lead score that classified them as Leads, MQLs, and SQLs, changing the content and interaction throughout the process.
Tactical Deliverables
Lead activation by geolocation
In addition, we also understood in Design Sprint that our results could be exponential through automated rules and strategies to re-engage leads who abandoned their shopping carts, as well as those who have already purchased a product from us, thereby increasing their initial package.
To do this, we designed a re-engagement and repurchase rule that was activated and generated different triggers, as well as a lead score that classified them as Leads, MQLs, and SQLs, changing the content and interaction throughout the process.
Tactical Deliverables
Atomic Research as a knowledge base
We understood that we had a lot of knowledge about the product, our users, their journeys, and a lot of data, but little access to this information. In other words, we were losing crucial data and information.
To reduce this problem, the Research team started an Atomic Research project to make all this information available to our teams in a consistent and easily accessible/interpretable way, with the aim of enhancing our work.
Officially a product
Vision, mission, and definition of our product
The main deliverable, and also the initial goal of the Design Sprint, was to define and create a vision and definition for our Plans Portal product. Aligning all the teams involved on what the product was, what the product was not, what the Golden Circle of our product was, which path we should follow, and other important details for decision-making.
This product definition was made official as a guide for all Squads, being used as a basis for discussion each quarter between Growth and Product leaders in a meeting to define objectives and upcoming projects (a meeting created after this Design Sprint).
Results
+ 50% increase in lead redirection
With the implementation of these designed solutions, and using product vision and definition for decision-making, we achieved an increase of more than 50% in lead redirection for conversion and operation.
Results
32% product repurchase rate
With the implementation of new repurchase rules and a focus on reconverting existing and lost leads, rather than just generating new leads, we were able to increase the repurchase rates of our Home Service products, reducing the average CAC of leads.
Results
My promotion to Design Lead
It wasn't part of my plans when I started this project, but it was this Design Sprint that positioned me even more within the company, giving me the position of Design Lead and responsibility for creating, managing, and organising the company's Design Ops team.
Next Project
Increasing Autonomy and Reducing Interference: How We Created a Whitelabel Design System Serving 3 Different Business Units
How we hacked the system to gain executive support for building a Design System team, eliminated 100% of marketing requests, and increased Design productivity by 23%.
Let's work together?
Let’s build, learn, and create something meaningful together
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Oops!
My portfolio isn’t available on mobile just yet
For the best experience, please visit on a desktop.
As a little thank-you for your patience, here’s a cute dog gif