Rabbet Onboarding Personas
Rabbet
Rabbet is a B2B construction finance SaaS company designed to help general contractors (GCs) manage their pay applications, invoices, budgets, and more using OCR technology.
The Problem
Rabbet's partner success team faced challenges with onboarding new customers, leading to mixed success rates. We observed that once customers were actively using Rabbet, we had very high user satisfaction metrics. However, there was significant fall-off during training and post-training/pre-adoption phases. To address this, I volunteered to lead a research initiative to diagnose these issues and propose solutions.
My Role
As the Director of Design at Rabbet, my primary focus was typically on product-centric tasks. However, the post-onboarding churn became a company-wide priority. I saw this as an opportunity to work across departments and empower our sales and customer success teams with UX practices and empathetic problem-solving.
Research Approach
- Interviews with Customer Success Team: Conducted in-depth interviews focusing on different clients' onboarding experiences. These interviews aimed to uncover specific pain points and obstacles encountered during each stage of the onboarding process.
- Flow Chart Creation: Mapped out all contact points through the four stages of onboarding (Sales Handoff, Project Preparation, Doer Training, Post-Training Support). This detailed flow chart helped visualize the entire onboarding journey.
- Building Proto Personas: Developed detailed proto personas based on the insights gathered from the interviews. These personas represented different types of users (doers) and their unique challenges, attitudes, and needs.
- Persona Journey Mapping: Collaboratively walked each proto persona through the flow chart with members of the customer success team, empathizing with their feelings and reactions at each step. This empathetic approach helped identify pain points and opportunities for improvement by seeing the onboarding process from the users' perspectives.
Findings
Our research identified several critical issues impacting the onboarding process:
Doer Exclusion from Decisions and Influence of Office Politics: Doers were frequently excluded from purchasing decisions, leading to feelings of being undermined and undervalued despite often having more expertise in the process than buyers. Office politics exacerbated this issue, with doers using their influence to resist changes imposed by executives. They took pride in their existing work and processes, feeling disrespected when higher-ups dictated new methods. This resistance and disengagement significantly hindered software implementation.
Invisible Power of Doers: Despite not being the decision-makers, doers held significant influence over the successful adoption of Rabbet. Less tech-savvy doers, comfortable with Excel but struggling with new software, showed significant resistance by misbehaving or refusing to engage with the new system. Their ability to adopt or resist the software ultimately determined its effectiveness within the company.
Lack of Communication within Customer Company: Insufficient communication within the customer company led to misunderstandings and resistance. Doers often felt disconnected from the decisions being made, further complicating the onboarding process.
Sales and Training Practices: Historically, sales efforts targeted buyers, and training focused on doers. However, there was a lack of effort to gain buy-in from doers during the sales process, leading to challenges in adoption.
Presentation and Implementation
I presented the findings to the entire company, including a brief lesson on empathetic design, and how it could be a useful tool for all jobs. Key recommendations included:
Involving Doers Early: Encouraging purchasers to involve doers in the buying process to increase buy-in.
Customizing Training: Tailoring training to address doer concerns and demonstrating how Rabbet enhances their skills.
Awareness of Internal Politics: Understanding the dynamics within client organizations and selling to the entire company, not just the final decision-maker.
Value Proposition: Emphasizing how Rabbet could improve the doers' work lives without making them less valuable or replacing them.
The Outcome
Post-presentation, we saw:
Increased involvement of doers in purchasing decisions.
Positive feedback indicating improved onboarding experiences.
A hypothesized increase in successful onboarding rates and user satisfaction.
This project highlighted the importance of understanding and addressing the diverse perspectives of different user roles. Involving end-users early, tailoring support to their needs, and being aware of internal politics can significantly improve software adoption and success.