Yodle Reviews & Rateabiz.com // 2014

Yodle Reviews & Rateabiz.com

2014

Research
Prototyping
Product Design

Increasing customer acquisition for small businesses

Service-based, small business owners are experts in their field - not in online advertising. Whether it be cleaning teeth, fixing pipes, or resolving legal matters, they hired us at Yodle to help them acquire new customers.

My team designed and launched a review management system that improved product performance for clients without increasing price. This led to increased client retention and profitability.

Yodle provides marketing automation products to 58,000+ service businesses, including Maaco, Merry Maids, and Miracle Ear. In 2015, Yodle filed for IPO, but was ultimately acquired by Web.com (NASDAQ: WEB) for $342MM.

CONTEXT

Data shows online reviews increase product performance and client retention

When our data science team was analyzing retention data, they found a correlation with online reviews of our small business clients. Clients with at least one online review on sites like Google and Yelp, had a higher retention rate than those with zero. The problem, however, was the majority of our clients had zero reviews. Our team set out to help clients collect online reviews to increase their customer acquisition.

As the lead designer, I managed the end-to-end design process from ideation through launch. I collaborated with a great team consisting of a junior designer, visual designer, product manager, and engineers. We designed, tested, and launched a review management system with a consumer site, a B2B tool, and a widget that appeared on 40,000+ consumer websites.

Research insights

Using the existing feedback loop I created to listen to our clients, I conducted interviews with small business owners to better understand their attitudes and feelings about online reviews. The key findings that shaped the design were:

Hesitant of negative reviews - Many business owners did not want to ask their customers for online reviews because they were afraid of receiving bad reviews.
Naive about the benefits of reviews - Unexpectedly, business owners did not have the same understanding we had from our data analysis - reviews have a positive impact on SEO and customer acquisition.
Sporadic review collection - Business owners that already had reviews did not have a consistent way of soliciting or collecting them. Reviews often trickled in every few months or even every few years.

How might we provide a sense of control in our online reviews product?

Using the research insights as ideation stimuli, I led a workshop with the cross-functional team of product managers, engineers, and designers. From that, I modeled out 3 different system designs which I used to align our team with senior leadership on the vision of the product.

We decided to move forward by building a proprietary review system rather than leveraging Yelp or Google Reviews. This allowed us to distribute the review content through our partner network, which increases the SEO impact. It also allowed us to provide clients with a greater sense of control.

Process flows and site map

After identifying the core user scenarios for the reviews system, I created process flows and a sitemap to drive scope and functionality discussions with the cross-functional team.

Wireframing, prototyping, and user testing

I created the design plan and held my team accountable for deadlines. Throughout the design process, I defined the experience, structure, and interactions of the B2B tool and mentored the junior designer on the consumer site.

For user testing, I created the testing plan and prototype, recruited users, and conducted the sessions. I then quantified the results and wrote the usability findings report.

Providing more guidance

One of the major findings from user testing was the need to provide guidance. In order to do so, I designed a conditional tips area that provided business owners with suggestions on how to respond to a review, based on the star rating.

Development

During development, I worked with two engineering teams who built the tools in tandem. I collaborated with them on implementation and made scope decisions to reduce development costs.

THE SOLUTION

Increased confidence in reviews

By educating business owners about online reviews and empowering them to take control, we increased their confidence. They are able to learn what to do if they receive negative reviews and have a clear path of resolution if they feel a review should be taken down.

Working with a junior designer and a visual designer, we defined the visual language of Rateabiz.com and applied the existing Yodle styles to the B2B tool.

The system includes interfaces for both business owners and consumers. Business owners have a responsive tool to solicit, manage, and automatically distribute reviews to over 50 online properties. Consumers can read and write reviews for businesses on Rateabiz.com and on the websites of 40,000+ small businesses.

Rateabiz widget displayed on a client website

THE RESULTS

95% User adoption

7 months after launch, we were already collecting 10,000 reviews per month, 95% of users solicited reviews and the review completion rate was 85%, achieving both our business and UX goals.

Improved internal collaboration

By collaborating with stakeholders on the system level design first, I was able to establish a shared vision early on in the design process. This proved to be helpful in reducing distractions and re-work throughout design and development cycles.

Indexed by Google

Within six weeks of launching, Rateabiz reviews were being indexed by Google and the ratings were displayed on the search results page.