Persuasive Onboarding
Conversion Study & Progress for 1099 Clinician Workers
2021 (2022 Release)
Background
This product represents a new kind of working experience for Nurses and care clinicians. It's a marketplace that cuts out the staffing agency. Self-qualifying and self-selecting when and where to work from profile postings from facilities was an entirely new (and scary) paradigm.
So for this marketplace, the onboarding process of this platform is intricately tied to the conversion life cycle. It extends beyond mere registration and a moment of “purchase.” The initial encounter is the registration screen, but the true conversion of a nurse or to an app user does not occur until the user has had a positive experience establishing a successful connection with a medical facility.
Onboarding for this experience can be an instantaneous process, if the clinician is eager to work immediately. However, more commonly the process is days, weeks or even months long. For new users to be successful, the app must enable them to craft a compelling profile that demonstrates compliance and qualification criteria are met and resonates with the hiring personnel at medical facilities.
All of this is to say that to completely “onboard” a clinician user, it was imperative for me to analyze and evaluate not only the registration flow but to evaluate the experience new users had clearing license validation and clear screenings, creating and strengthening their profiles, shopping for work and communicating with potential employers. And this was the first challenge I was asked to tackle for the product.
Starting Line
(Problem-to-solve)
Our data showed fairly high drop-off during registration, which was not unpredictable as to gain access to a profile the potential user had to authenticate a valid clinical license. But, the second highest likely fail point was after creating an account, most users did not even request a job, and most of those who did were not hired. We did have strong data showing a threshold of specific profile points (ID documents, basic certifications, and photos) that if the user completed them on their profile, they were significantly (over 50%) more likely to be hired to work.
My mission was first to discover why clinicians would create a profile and never use it (and then fix that problem).
And second my mission was to make our clinical users more marketable to our medical hiring users. The app initially launched (prior to my joining the organization) with a build-your-profile-as-you-go approach. Consequently, teams of internal agents were necessary to help new registrants get through the process and actually make their first work connection. It didn’t appear to our team that our registered user base was particularly unqualified, but rather that our app was not good at helping them show that they were indeed qualified.
Register to Request Too Quick
Immediate landing in the "deep end" left prospects confused and worried.
Research Methods
Surveys & Personae
From user surveys, I created Profiles of users based on their in-app behaviors and work history, to understand the similarities and differences between new users based on their clinical domain, preferences and goals and to find their shared pain points. These were from just over 1,450 registered user responses.
Interviews
I collected qualitative insights through user interviews in which I met with clinicians (2 or 3 from each license type we supported) who had not yet encountered the app or any app like this one.
I observed as each clinician participant walked through the registration in the app with a “think-out-loud protocol” so I could understand their moment-to-moment reaction to the registration UI, and followed this activity with a deeper interview regarding their feelings on the new idea, open questions they’d have if considering it, and reservation that might prevent them from using the app.
Using what I gleaned from an onboarding/conversion journey and emotion maps to help identify and visualize the specific moments in their interactions with the app the prospective user was at risk for confusion, frustration, and drop-out.
Findings & Recommendations
The biggest barriers to conversion I identified were:
Fear of the unknown -
- * Lack of understanding about how the app connection worked
* Uncertainty about the people at the facility they would be connected with
Fear of being under qualified –
- * Registration was easy, raising concerns about safety and legality
- * Some felt unsure about completing the registration and qualification process
Confusion on using the profile –
- * Users who responded to surveys and requested jobs faced hindrances due to incomplete basic profiles, yet had lack of awareness that incomplete profiles were affecting their acceptance rates
Solution Strategy
This was (and is ongoingly) a multi-tiered and evolving solution that is core to the growth of this Product. However, for the V1 Solution (which is still the base the app works from) the solution I recommend and we implemented included:
- Basic Compliance Help
- Better guidance in app in how/what to upload to prove qualifications, certifications, experience and appear to facilities
- Goals and Achievements
- Continual rewards and delights for users as they progress and “grow” their profiles.
Improve UI Flow
- Lighten registration flow (reduce unnecessary steps and “noise” )
and then fix that problem).
Guide Users to Profile Build
- A shift away from the “build-as-you-go” profile to a more direct landing after registration into a guided profile-building experience that is clear and focused on what we know a user must accomplish to stand a chance in the marketplace.
Facility Communication
- More information directly from the medical facility on job postings; job-posters able to better communicate to prospects, and be more explicit about their preferences.
- Job Readiness Feedback
- More visibility for job-seekers on how they rank in qualifications for each posted job they view
- Better Control for Job Hirers
- Hiring staff at medical facility better able to match their applicants to their own screening demands
