Offer Retention Strategy for NYT Subscribers

Understanding the Problem with the Subscription Modification Flow

Reframing the Problem

To uncover the root of the problem, I delved into previous research conducted on this topic. Various teams within the Growth mission at The New York Times have explored this issue from different angles, with their primary question being:

Focusing on the Agent Experience

While I care deeply about the customer experience, I recognize that it is intrinsically tied to the agent's experience. Therefore, I chose to focus on understanding the agent experience, particularly the issues they face while navigating the Subscription Modification flow to select the best upgrade offers for customers. Here are some of the key questions I aimed to answer:

• What are the primary pain points agents have in assisting customers to modify their subscriptions?
• What types of information or insights do agents find most helpful when selecting offers for customers?
• How do agents perceive the current interface in terms of ease of use and overall efficiency?

The Primary Pain Points

Here are the main issues agents find with the current subscription modification flow, uncovered after reviewing existing research:

Narrowing down from a list of options is challenging

While on a call with a customer, agents must quickly read through a list of retention offers, assess which one will be most effective for the customer, and present it persuasively, all in real-time. This often leads to longer call durations and delays in assisting customers.

Clearing conflicting subscriptions poses a common challenge

Customers sometimes have existing subscriptions that must be removed before an agent can select another retention offer. This usually means that agents are required to navigate out of the Subscription Modification flow, return to the customer profile page, and cancel the existing subscriptions before being able to proceed.

Ineligible offers clutter the decision space

Customers are often ineligible for certain subscription upgrades based on their current subscription type. Despite this, these ineligible offers are still displayed to agents, even though they cannot be selected. This leads to congestion in the available choices, further complicating the decision-making process.

I mocked up designs that I thought would best address the issues we identified. Here are the goals I aimed to achieve with these new designs:

• 01 Surface the most relevant offers to agents first, reduce cognitive load by prominently highlighting retention offers most likely to appeal to customers based on their history.
• 02 Integrate key customer information into the Subscription Modification flow, ensure agents wouldn't have to exit to retrieve necessary customer information from the profile page.
• 03 Eliminate ineligible offers from the list, minimize congestion and ensure agents can focus on the most relevant choices for customers.
• 04 Reduce the steps required to clear conflicting subscriptions, automate the subscription cancellation process so agents don't have to exit the flow.

Managing Stakeholder Preferences

While exploring various design iterations, I gathered feedback from different designers on how to optimize the offer selection process for agents. We were torn between two main designs: one that redirected agents to another page to select an offer, and another that allowed them to select an offer on the same page. To determine the best approach, I decided to conduct user testing with agents.

Guerrilla Usability Testing

To gather data on the agents' preferences for the two designs, I conducted guerrilla-style usability testing to efficiently collect feedback. I created two prototypes and presented various tasks requiring agents to use the product switch flow to complete them.

Option A

Select offer on same page

Option B

Select offer from different page

“I liked having the offer on the first page as opposed to going to a new one. I like that you can still see the other offers, while looking at one in more detail. Makes it easier to switch if necessary.”

Agents found the first offer selection flow to be most intuitive, therefore I decided to focus on finalizing that design.

Due to product prioritization and roadmapping efforts, the team decided to put this work on hold and focus on other features. This past spring, we resumed work on the designs, aiming to further simplify the offer selection flow for agents.

We also now have access to new technology that will allow us to surface only the best value offers to agents. This means that agents will no longer have to choose from a list of more than five offers at a time.

I revisited the designs with a fresh perspective, focusing on two key questions:

• How can I rework the interface to better optimize for displaying fewer offers?
• Where can I consolidate and eliminate pages to streamline the process of selecting an offer for a customer?

During the visual quality assurance (VQA) process, I collaborated closely with engineers to ensure alignment between the designs in Figma and the implementation in staging. This involved logging into the staging account and using the inspect tool to closely examine the specifications of the design elements. I annotated any discrepancies I noticed, so that engineers could make necessary adjustments. This iterative process helped ensure that the final product closely matched the intended design, enhancing consistency and visual quality across the platform.

After implementing the redesigned Subscription Modification flow, we observed meaningful improvements in key metrics that reflect both agent efficiency and customer satisfaction: