Shernaz Pavri
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Growth · Acquisition · Onboarding

Rebuilding QuickBooks’ first impression

I joined the teams, tested five ideas and built a better path from first click to value.

Rebuilding QuickBooks’ first impression

+65%

trial sign-up conversion

+10%

gross new subscribers

+11%

traffic reaching subscription

Company
Intuit QuickBooks
Period
2016 — 2018
Role
Group Manager, Experience Design — Growth and Onboarding; leading the First Impressions team across Marketing and Product Design.

The growth problem

QuickBooks had strong sign-ups, but 45% of trial customers did not return. The product felt too big. People had to choose a plan before they understood it.

  • More than 800 million small businesses made this a large market
  • People knew the brand but did not see how it could help them
  • Busy business owners could not link QuickBooks to their daily work
  • Research found three ways people wanted to start
  • Customers asked for plain value, not a sales pitch
  • Confused customers blamed themselves and left

My mandate

Redesign the website, sign-up, onboarding and purchase journey. Help customers reach value sooner.

one team, one journey

I brought Marketing Design and Product Design into one First Impressions team.

  • One shared signup and subscription metric replaced competing priorities
  • We started reviews with customer research
  • Engineers joined early, so we could test small ideas
  • Content designers wrote the language before we designed the screens

five measurable bets

We tested each change on its own. We also let customers subscribe inside QuickBooks after trying it.

  • Redesign the website around real small businesses
  • Let customers try the product before choosing a plan
  • Ask people to sign up later
  • Let people sign in with Google
  • Let customers buy inside QuickBooks

one brand system

I led the New Starts campaign across TV, social ads and landing pages. Tests showed that real product images and plain language worked best.

  • One visual style ran across TV, ads and landing pages
  • Motion was introduced to display advertising for the first time
  • We tested images and messages on separate pages
  • The best version showed QuickBooks in use and spoke plainly

value after signup

We improved setup, dashboard speed, reports and email. Each step helped customers make progress.

  • Setup changed to match each customer’s goals
  • Dashboard load time fell from 110 to 15 seconds
  • QuickBooks Assistant explained financial reports
  • Welcome emails linked customers to their next task

Commercial outcome

More people signed up, stayed and needed less help.

  • +65% trial sign-up conversion after deferring plan choice and +10% gross new subscribers
  • +4 points email conversion and +0.9 points 30-day retention
  • 16% of trial customers used the chatbot, with 83% satisfaction
  • 17% fewer customer-care calls

The work

See how the work changed.

QuickBooks customer evidence showing trial abandonment and plan-choice difficulty
People knew QuickBooks, but it felt too large and asked them to choose too soon.
Original QuickBooks journey showing a customer moving from the website to plan selection
The old journey asked customers to choose a plan before they saw the value.
Combined QuickBooks Marketing Design and Product Design First Impressions team
I joined Marketing Design and Product Design into one First Impressions team.
Four principles for the cross-functional QuickBooks operating model
We shared one goal and used customer evidence to make decisions.
QuickBooks formal and conversational landing-page copy variants
Plain, friendly language worked better than formal product copy.
End-to-end QuickBooks trial journey map comparing three purchase paths
We mapped three paths from first visit to purchase.
QuickBooks funnel showing almost half of trial signups dropping at plan choice
Nearly half of trial customers stopped when asked to choose a plan.
QuickBooks product dashboard shown after onboarding
The new dashboard helped customers see value before paying.
QuickBooks dashboard performance improvement from 110 to 15 seconds
We cut dashboard load time from 110 to 15 seconds.
QuickBooks Assistant conversational interface for financial reports
QuickBooks Assistant explained reports in plain language.
QuickBooks behaviour-driven welcome email journey
Emails used each customer’s goals and linked to their next task.

What I learned

Lessons I still use.

01

Follow the full customer journey.

02

Improve how teams work.

03

Use evidence to win support.

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