Brief
As an E-Commerce Growth Manager, I led the brand’s first comprehensive website redesign (view case study here). This specific project is an extension of the E-Commerce Optimization project, that details my involvement improving the user subscription experience for Cardon’s skincare customers and launching over 10 MVP features for the pilot loyalty program and subscription portal upgrade.
How can we enhance the user subscription experience while providing more engagement?
About the Brand
Cardon is a direct-to-consumer men’s personal care brand known for its science-backed formulations using innovative Korean skincare technology. The brand focuses on creating simple and effective skincare solutions tailored to the specific needs of men's skin.
My Contributions
Although my primary responsibility was to oversee the successful launch of the brand's new online store, I took an active role in enhancing the subscription experience beyond the website rebuild. Notably, I led the design, development and implementation of a “subscription membership” loyalty program to help nurture brand trust and improve customer retention. This project case study is organized based on my personal contributions:
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Disclaimer: High-fidelity wireframe designs displayed in this case study were created by a third-party agency.
Understanding the Problem
Cardon customers were feeling dismissive and frustrated with their skincare subscription journey, particularly in product discovery and subscription management. Usability testing revealed that users were having difficulty finding and navigating the subscription portal. Users were also wanting a “trust factor” throughout their subscription journey. The challenge was to transform the subscription experience to address these user pain points while encouraging continued engagement.
Initial Explorations & User Research
I conducted usability tests to identify user pain points across every critical touchpoint in the subscription journey. I designed the test framework, including the research method (interviews and surveys), user criteria, and test scenarios/tasks, and identified two main user groups: first-time users and current loyal users.
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We uncovered insights into user subscription sentiment we didn’t expect: users expressed a desire for increased engagement and a “trust factor” throughout their subscription journey. These findings opened up an extensive discussion on subscription value perception, engagement, and incentives with the team.
Narrowing the Scope
Based on the user research results, we decided to focus on redesigning the subscription portal and integrating new loyalty program features into the subscription experience. I facilitated a prioritization workshop employing an importance/difficulty matrix.
We decided to focus on developing the following features for the subscription portal:
Designing the Loyalty System
While the design agency worked on feature updates, I worked with the internal team to build the logic and framework of the new loyalty program. I did research and proposed building a tier-based loyalty program, integrating the concept of a subscription membership.
Loyalty Incentives
We wanted to provide unique subscription benefits to members of the loyalty program. We decided to create a members-only VIP Shop as one of the primary benefits of the loyalty program, allowing users to shop directly in the portal with special discounted pricing based on their tier.
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Loyalty Tracking
I suggested building a personalized dashboard in the subscription portal where users can view a snapshot of their loyalty member status/tier, available discounts, total savings, upcoming subscriptions, and a list of their top skincare concerns.
Read on to see how I helped design the personalized dashboard ✨ 😉 It’s pretty cool!
Design Reviews
I collaborated with the agency to run multiple design review sessions for the new subscription portal features and loyalty program integration. Below I showcase two examples of innovative solutions and technical challenges that arose during these sessions.
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Launching the MVP
We successfully launched the first iteration of the new loyalty program and redesign of the subscription portal. We garnered immediate positive feedback from users, especially with the personalized subscription dashboard and VIP Shop. We saw an over 10% increase in both daily sessions per active user and average session duration of the subscription portal in less than four months.
Next Steps & Learnings
Building on this project, further iterations would focus on testing and refining the subscription membership concept of the new loyalty program. I would also incorporate ongoing usability tests for the subscription portal to continue to optimize the user experience based on feedback.
A few things I learned:
- User research can lead to unexpected insights
- Don’t be too greedy, just iterate
- Be prepared to run into design vs. technical challenges
- User research, usability testing, and analysis
- Facilitating prioritization workshops
- Developing a subscription loyalty system
- Ideating design solutions
- Managing the launch of the MVP
Here were some key takeaways from the usability test:
- 87% of both user groups struggled to find/access the subscription portal from the Account page
- 100% of both user groups had difficulty navigating the portal to manage subscriptions
- 75% of first-time users didn’t see the value in subscribing
- 91% of loyal users preferred direct communication with customer service to manage subscriptions
Below is a list of some other loyalty benefits we came up with:
- New tier gifts
- New product testing
- Early access to new launches
- Invite-only offers from partner brands
Dashboard Design
We wanted to ensure the personalized dashboard was useful and easy to navigate. To achieve this, I helped redesign the layout and components of the dashboard from the first design iteration. For example, I suggested adding an anchor function for displaying multiple subscription orders and adding additional widgets to display promotional/educational content so as to not overload the dashboard.
I also worked with the developers to pull results from the quiz to display the user’s top skincare concerns in the dashboard.
VIP Shop Design
We wanted to seamlessly integrate the VIP Shop into the subscription portal, employing an auto-discounting feature without overcomplicating the navigation. I proposed leveraging the built-in product add-on function in the subscription portal to develop the VIP Shop, which also helped reduce significant rework.
To provide users with easy access to the VIP Shop, I worked with the designers and developers to add the shop feature to both the personalized dashboard and the Active Subscriptions section.
