Referral Program improvement

Sellers need a more intuitive and accessible tool to understand what action their referee has taken and what action is needed to receive a reward. 

Oct 2021 - Feb 2022

Square Referral Program

How might we encourage more sellers to use referrals?

Overview

Our main objective is to increase the number of sellers using Square's services and ensure they remain loyal to us. We have identified two key goals: attracting more new sellers and retaining the existing ones. To achieve these goals, we believe that a rewards and referrals program would be effective.


For attracting new sellers, referrals have been proven to be an efficient way, with a 300% profit margin, to bring in more sellers. However, only about 1.3% of current sellers are making referrals due to a lack of awareness. Additionally, our current reward program offers only three similar rewards, which don't cater to the diverse needs of sellers. 

Due to the expected decline in the US market growth, it is crucial to focus on retaining sellers. Even a slight improvement in our retention rates can result in millions of dollars in additional revenue. It is not only more cost-effective but also creates an opportunity for sales growth. To achieve this, we plan to build out better visibility and improve the use of our referral program.

Problem statements

🚩 Cost efficient channel, but low engagement. Many sellers are unaware of the referral program, with 60% responding that they did not know where to find it. 

🚩 The current referral program is simple, but the referral and rewards process is confusing.

🚩 They feel annoyed to go in and get the referral link to refer their friends or fellow business owners.

Business Impacts: 36% significant increase in “referrals sent” (mostly driven by the QR code, which accounts for 41% of total referrals sent).

Team (10)
PM (2), Designer (1, Myself), Engineers (5), PMM (2) 

Target Platform
POS, Terminal app, and Dashboard

Target Audience
Square POS users, size: 15 micro/Small-Medium Businesses, Category: Retail, Food & Beverage, Professional Services

Project Goals
Our primary goal is to increase Square GPV, driven through efforts to both increase new activations (NNA) through referrals and retain existing sellers with our rewards program. 


Secondary metrics

Referrals - Increased NPA and NNA

Milestones - Increased seller retention/decreased churn and increased % of active sellers

Success Metrics
# of referral page visitors after new landing experience

# of new sellers by referrals
# of NNAs by referrals

My accomplishment
I worked as a solo product designer for a project and was responsible for creating a Referral Activity Tracker design. Additionally, I improved the referral program across all platforms, including payment apps and a dashboard. This helped users to keep track of their referrals and claim rewards. I also collaborated with the product manager to determine the project's requirements and roadmap more efficiently by proposing short-term and long-term designs. Implementing these enhancements led to a successful improvement in the referral experience, resulting in a 36% increase in referrer engagement.

Research & Discovery

To gather information on the current referral program experience, PMM conducted user testing and interviews.

Customer Experience map

After reviewing user interviews and analyzing data, I created a customer experience map of the referral process. This allowed the team to review and improve processes, identify pain points, and find opportunities.

<Seller Quotes>

💬 "I referred one of my friends and he created a Square account. I just want to see if it’s on my account because I’m not able to find it…he says he’s already taken his $1 payment.” 

Seller requests (from interviews and user tests)

💬 I want a great referral experience.

💬 I was supposed to get free processing but I never got it. There is no UI feedback showing sellers where and how the free processing had been applied or seeing their remaining balance.
💬 How do I know if the person I referred signed up? 
Sellers don’t have an effective way of knowing if the person they referred signed up. 

User needs

SOlution #1: NEW ENTRY POINT, Navigation menu redefined

Hypothesis
If we increase the visibility of the referral program, then awareness will also increase, leading to an increase in referrals. Currently, only 1.2% of sellers send referrals due to limited awareness. Increasing visibility will help reduce barriers and result in more referrals.

Before 

If sellers wanted to refer their friends, they needed to follow four steps to see the referral page—The navigation hierarchy was too complex and had too many levels.

Design explorations for "Referral Home"

Sellers will notice the updated referral program once the sellers are on the referrals & rewards applet. They will see more awareness touch points for the updated referrals.

Design Explorations 

I devised several ideas for a referral home screen for users. I reviewed these ideas with the design team and the stakeholders, and we discussed which option would be the best while requiring the least amount of effort from the engineers to build it quickly. After careful consideration, we decided to go with option B, which features an illustration explaining the referral and rewards system, as well as a simple menu list. 

Test Result 

Control (Before): More > Settings > Account > Referrals
Treatment (After): More > Referrals & Rewards (Winner!) +36%

The new location in the More menu increased the overall referrals sent by 36% and clicks on other menus in the More menu didn't decrease. 

Design Decision

Create a migration solution for sellers from our old home to our new one, and then add a new default design when landing on our applet.

SOlution #2: Referrals & rewards tracking

Hypothesis
If we enhance referral tracking, then we can increase the acquisition and conversion of new sellers, as well as the retention of existing ones. This improvement in our referral program will likely result in an increased likelihood of sellers sending referrals to new sellers and facilitate successful activation through better tracking mechanisms.

Discovery 

I reviewed the end-to-end flow to gain a better understanding of the perspective of referrers and referees. I created the flow to identify which touchpoints caused pain points and churn and devised solutions. 

Design Explorations 

Initially, I wanted to make it easy for users to see all the steps involved in the referral process at a glance. To achieve this, I came up with several designs that incorporated a progress bar to indicate the stages through which referrals receive rewards, but due to development time constraints and the unavailability of a progress bar component, I decided to streamline the referral process by displaying text that shows the current stage of the referred friend and an appropriate button for that step. 

Result

After launching the activity-tracking feature in the US, we discovered that many people used the "Nudge" button. This feature was initially only available in the US. However, we decided to make it available globally due to its effectiveness in decreasing the number of customer service calls related to referrals and increasing the number of referee activation rates.

solution #3: referral Dashboard redesign

As a follow-up to the success of our Referrals applet experiment on the mobile app, we’ll explore options for greater visibility within Square Dashboard. 

Hypothesis
By redesigning the dashboard to prominently showcase the referral program and making it more visible and accessible to our users, we expect to see an increase in the number of users participating in the referral program and a subsequent boost in referral-related activities. We anticipate that a well-designed dashboard with a strong emphasis on the referral feature will encourage users to invite friends, resulting in a higher number of successful referrals and a positive impact on our user base and user engagement metrics.

🔴 Problem #1: Profile dropdown menu
Current profile dropdown name: Get free processing
It is unclear for users to understand that “Get free processing” is related to referral and reward content.

🔴 Problem #2: Search
During my dashboard audit, I attempted to locate specific information by using the search box. I entered keywords such as "refer" and "reward," but the search results yielded no relevant info. The search showed support articles only. It didn't show the dedicated referrals & rewards page at all.

🔴 Problem #3: Search results
The search engine should display relevant pages in search results when the search keyword matches content on the page. However, the 'Referral' search failed to find the appropriate page.

🔴 Problem #4: Navigation location
Current dashboard: Dashboard Home > Account & Settings > Account > Get free processing



It is difficult for users to find the referral program within the dashboard. The referrals menu is hidden.

🔴 Problem #5: Outdated design
The Referral home page gives the impression of being from a different brand and looks outdated because it doesn't match the latest company design system. It takes up 100% of the page width, making it overwhelming and hard to understand its purpose. Additionally, the outdated design makes maintenance difficult, and it cannot scale to accommodate new content, promotions, or rewards. Since the design system doesn't support the outdated design components, it cannot be updated to meet new requirements.

Proposals

⚪ Proposal #1: Left navigation: Pulling out of the account menu and changing the name
Get free processing ➡️ Referrals & rewards

⚪ Proposal #2: Change the profile dropdown menu name
Get free processing ➡️ Your referrals & rewards

⚪ Proposal #3: Search 'Referrals' or 'Rewards'
The search engine displays the 'Referrals' page in search results.

⚪ Proposal #4: Redesign referral page
Redesign the page to match the current design system, ensuring a cohesive look and feel.

Product Decision

⚪ Proposal #1 & #2: NOT ACCEPTED
Why? In the A/B test, we changed the menu name from "Get free processing (A)" to "Referrals & Rewards. (B)" Surprisingly, the test revealed that while the "Get free processing" option attracted more clicks, the number of actual referrals was lower. However, when users accessed the menu B, the referral conversion rate was higher than A. This led to a strategic dilemma: prioritize high visitor numbers or focus on a higher referral conversion rate. The teams opted to prioritize visitor numbers, as even with a lower conversion rate, the overall number of referrals is higher than with the original menu name. Therefore, we didn't change the menu name.

⚪ Proposal #3: NOT ACCEPTED
Why? We couldn't change the search engine. It is not within the scope to modify the search engine.

✅ Proposal #4: Redesign referral page
ACCEPTED!

FINAL DESIGN

What I learned

Through this project, I have realized that I am not the user. I had assumed that people would understand and prefer the design choices I made. However, in reality, the content didn't resonate with actual users. This experience reinforced the importance of user testing. I have learned that testing is crucial before any product launch, and I will always prioritize it to ensure that our designs align with user preferences and needs.