The conversion rate of online education is the most important factor for every company, whether it is a large company with a large budget for investment or a small company carefully looking for KOLs for distribution cooperation. All agencies point to “higher conversion rates” to reduce the cost of acquiring the first customer. This transformation link involves almost all team members, including subject products, community operations , telemarketing department, teaching and research, course tutoring, user research department, production and research technology, and channel growth.

So what is the most critical factor that determines the “conversion rate”?

Friends who have visited IKEA, when you close your eyes and think back, what was the most pleasant feeling that stimulated your desire to consume? Maybe it’s the comfort of lying on a sofa that you like, the excitement of seeing the cleverly designed kitchen space, the satisfaction of eating Swiss meatballs wrapped in rich sauce in the restaurant, and the sweet feeling of getting a bargain by buying ice cream for 1 yuan?

When did you feel the most unhappy, tiring, and wanted to give up the purchase? The anxiety of walking around in circles when you can’t find the product you want, the disappointment when you see the price tag that is far beyond your budget, the tiredness of having sore legs when you go to the pickup area on the first floor to get the items, the restlessness of waiting in long lines at the door for rental?

As users, we walk along the carefully arranged traffic routes of IKEA, without realizing that in such a huge scene, we step by step experience the paths that have been designed and planned in advance and come into contact with different touch points.

Although IKEA has iterated and adjusted the route design and services in various links countless times over the years, it still cannot guarantee that every point is a high point, bringing users a series of ups and downs in emotional experiences and feelings, which also outlines our impression of the overall journey.

IKEA is constantly improving, optimizing and iterating to provide users with a better experience. The goal is nothing more than to increase user conversions in every journey. This picture that depicts the user experience is the "user experience map".

IKEA Simplified User Experience Map

What is the definition of customer experience map?

User Experience/Journey Map, starting from the user's perspective, uses storytelling and visualization to intuitively display the process of users using products or receiving services with emotional curves, helping us gain a global perspective on the product.

Experiencing the product process from the user's perspective, discovering user pain points and product problems, and then iterating in a targeted manner is not only an important tool for product optimization, but also a part of the user growth strategy system.

Most online education, especially the sales conversion of higher-priced courses (high price, difficult decision-making, difficult perception), requires a high-cost conversion path. The most common and most cost-effective conversion method in the industry is "community conversion". Users go through a series of complex processes and come into contact with dozens of touch points in the community, and then complete the important conversion and transaction actions.

To give you a quick impression, you can take a look at the picture below, which is VIPKID’s new user experience map , showing the entire user experience process for new users, from registration, level assessment, cancellation of class appointments, preview, ordering, and free class distribution.

Figure: China Bridge Consulting Report

This chart comes from the consulting service report that "Qingzhong Consulting Company" provided to VIPKID. It was drawn after several months of in-depth research, meticulous exploration, and scientific analysis by a team of consulting experts. This consulting service, which is worth millions, does not have a higher-definition version due to commercial confidentiality. But don't worry, our goal is to understand the disassembly method and master the construction of the core framework.

What does a user experience map consist of?

From the above figure, we can see that in addition to the curve chart of emotional ups and downs, there are many things under the "iceberg" that reveal the reasons for the ups and downs, which roughly include the following 8 points:

1. User portrait

2. User stage

3. User needs

4. User Conduct

5. Ideas

6. Feelings & Emotional Curves

7. Pain Points

8. Opportunity Points

1. Create a User Profile

User portraits outline user needs and preferences, and create basic information about users, demands, expectations, and pain points, which can help formulate more targeted operational strategies - customer acquisition, conversion, and repeat purchases.

Where do the elements of user personas come from? For apps with diverse functions, we can infer more accurate user characteristics based on a variety of behavioral data such as browsing time, browsing categories, and consumption amount. For many high-priced courses (AI recorded/live courses costing thousands or tens of thousands of yuan), users log in to the APP/official website just to complete the class, but they don’t often browse the APP or buy individual products, so there is a lot of missing other behavioral data.

Therefore, for online education products with high customer unit prices, it is more necessary to combine telephone interviews, questionnaires, observation follow-up, feedback, personal account communication and other methods to create a rich user portrait. For example, in the process of community conversion, when a user is added to a personal account for the first time, the collection of the user’s information can be started.

In the stage where payers and consumers are separated, "users" are more like "paying decision makers", that is, parents. The parent portrait is closely related to conversion; and the child's learning situation, learning needs, degree of importance, and whether the child's wishes are respected can be reflected in "user attention".

If the stratification span of different user portraits is large and corresponds to quite different experience paths, different experience maps need to be drawn.

2. User segmentation

The main stages of community transformation in online education are:

1. Before class - register for the trial class and add your personal account to join the group;

2. During class - opening ceremony and course experience;

3. Course purchase-course purchase, closing ceremony and follow-up

3. Describe user goals/needs:

Identify the tasks or goals that users want to accomplish.

When describing user needs, the dual needs of parents and children are integrated. Fortunately, the goals and needs are basically the same. Users want to help their children choose courses to improve their subject scores. The needs reflected in the entire experience process are sorted out one by one to let us understand what users want at each stage.

For example, you may want to choose a subject tutoring class, want to add a teacher to learn about the course, want to get classroom learning materials, or want to meet an interesting and professional teacher.

4. Extract user behavior:

User behavior refers to the different touchpoints users come into contact with and the behavioral operations they take when using products and services. User surveys and user tracking can be used to understand the execution details of users at each stage.

In the early childhood stage and lower grades of elementary school, parents and students participate in the learning experience path together. For example, Xiaobu Early Education and Zebra AI classes require parents to accompany and participate. In higher age groups, parental involvement decreases, the number of stages that students complete independently increases, and the proportion of parental decision-making also decreases accordingly. Therefore, when it comes to refining user behavior, the behavior of parents in younger age groups will account for a higher proportion.

For example, click on the details page to learn about the course advantages, install the class software, preview and complete pre-class exercises, and download and print learning materials.

A more detailed and complex refinement can also subdivide the behavior into three media: personal accounts, social groups, and class apps/software/websites.

5. Write down user ideas:

Every time a user goes through an action, they will have corresponding thoughts. It is also the touchpoint that triggers users' thinking during the decision-making process.

For example, who will contact me after I sign up? Why didn’t the teacher reply to my message? Is this organization reliable? What did the child learn? Do you like it?

6. Distilling User Experience

Users will have different feelings at each touchpoint, but once the product/process and service reach a certain standard and level of refinement, the user's feelings can be more accurately refined and reflected in the emotional curve.

For example, I really want my child to improve his or her grades! Installing software is a real pain. I feel that this teacher’s classes are interesting and the children like them very much! The course price is a bit expensive.

After sorting out the above 6 parts, the basic framework of the experience map is completed. We will find the pain points, big and small, that users encounter, and provide corresponding solutions to the pain points, that is, find opportunities.

Generally, it is sorted out by different roles in a team. Everyone can discuss priorities according to importance and difficulty. When the emotional experience is low, they can find ways to increase motivation to improve it. Conversely, when the emotional experience is high, they can find ways to increase potential energy.

7. Pain points:

During the conversion process, due to differences in professionalism, sophistication, and maturity among companies, users encounter different pain points; however, most online education institutions actually face some common pain points that need to be solved.

For example, it is difficult for users to judge the teacher's level in a short period of time, it is difficult to trust the institution in a short period of time, the process is complicated and cumbersome, and the effect of the class cannot be seen.

8. Opportunities:

Through iterative design at different levels such as models, content, paths, rhythm, language, and technology, we provide value beyond expectations for opportunity points, increase user motivation, reduce action resistance, create a good user experience, and create more key touchpoints.

For example, find ways to help users quickly build trust, make user operations smoother and more enjoyable, and make students' learning effects more visual.

The basic framework I drew is as follows. You can adjust and refine it according to your company's business model and conversion model.

If you want to achieve the level of detail of VIPKID, depending on the size and stage of each company, it will take at least a few weeks to a dozen weeks for the team to discuss and sort out the details before it can be completed.

What is the value of customer experience maps?

The previous article sorted out the process of community conversion from the perspective of company operations (see the figure below); the user experience map introduced in this article starts from the user's perspective and fully shows the user's journey and feelings.

The above picture is from the article: Master the 4 core principles, and community operation will no longer be difficult

Once you understand the components of a customer journey map, its value becomes apparent:

1. Avoid the management perspective of product designers and decision makers, and design and think about user paths based on the real needs of users;

2. Help us identify the problems encountered by users, accurately locate and solve them, optimize products, and improve user experience;

3. Colleagues from all aspects of the team can participate to create a common perspective, form a collaborative docking environment, reach consensus on user behavior, pain points, etc., and promote effective communication and collaboration.

Summarize

Many companies try to use different models for conversion testing, and constantly adjust and screen. Once (one or more) conversion models are determined, the basic processes and links are gradually completed, and the level of operational refinement continues to increase, we will have more energy to focus on and optimize every user experience touchpoint.

Of course, the optimization priority requires the team to discuss together, arrange, sort out, and evaluate the pain points and opportunities identified, and arrange them according to urgency and importance based on dimensions such as time and resources.

Just as the conversion process helps improve conversion rates, the service of full-priced courses, as a longer journey, can also draw a user experience map to help improve service links and user experience, and increase renewal rates.

You are welcome to discuss the pain points and opportunities in the conversion process. In fact, there are many corresponding strategies that can be explored and applied. Eliminating the instability of channel traffic quality and steadily improving conversion rates is of great significance, even if it is only a 1% increase.

Author: Three Bowls of Mojito

Source: Three Bowls of Mojito