Keka HR’s Product Onboarding.
My role
UX Intern
Duration
Feb '23 - May '23
Impact
2 recommendations implemented.
Project Overview
The Client
Keka is an Enterprise HR Management Software tool, providing a suite of tools that create a full employee experience platform.
My Contribution
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Competitor Study
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Customer Journey Mapping
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Usability Tests
Non-Disclosure Agreement
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Due to the NDA, I cannot share any product screenshots.
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All product images are visual redesigns that I made for this case study.
Problem Statement
New customers of Keka find it difficult to set up the product efficiently for their organization's needs, increasing the churn rate.
Business Goals
In 2023, Keka had acquired 3000+ Customers, primarily from large enterprises. The goal was to next capture the market amongst Small & Medium Enterprises(SMEs). We had a pretty high churn rate, and we needed better product onboarding.
Users
Onboarding affects all employees of a client organization. For this project, my main user to consider was the admin that sets up Keka HR for the rest of their organization. This is usually a top-level HR manager.
Scope
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Understanding Pre-boarding and onboarding of HRMS Softwares.
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Discovery research for Keka's onboarding gaps.
Constraints
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No access to end users or UX Research Ops.
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3 month timeline.
Testimonial
"His user research techniques were robust, elaborate and well-documented." - Senior Product Designer
"He was meticulous, hardworking and had a keen eye for design. His user research techniques were robust, elaborate and well-documented. He also made it a point to interact with other designers, developers and Product Managers to understand the problem and churn out solutions accordingly."
Process
The Goal
Research Questions
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What are the difficulties that new/potential customers of Keka face during customer onboarding?
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What are our customers' expectations when trying the product for the first time?
Competitors
What is the benchmark for Keka HR?
I studied the pre-boarding processes of 6 Direct US-based Competitors and 4 indirect competitors, presented in the table below.
Key Findings
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Outsourcing chat support to tools like Freshworks is a quick and smart investment to reduce burden on Customer Success.
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Adding sample data can help SMEs understand jargon through context.
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Having default settings can help reduce onboarding time significantly for small and medium enterprises.
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Product tours are most efficient when done within each feature.
Interviews
What does Keka's Customer Success team have to say?
Keka has an excellent customer success team that gets in touch with new and potential customers to customize all Keka products. After interviewing them, I created a customer journey map with all the key pain points they brought up.
A quote from an Associate Lead, Customer Success (Implementation team) about our existing client onboarding flow:
"It needs better design. Like Instagram. You just KNOW what to do when you’re there. Keka should be like that, it should be easier for our customers to use the product by themselves."
Client onboarding journey.
Key Findings
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Lengthy onboarding process(25-40 days).
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Cleaning and preparing data is the longest step.
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Heavy dependency on Keka's Customer Success team to navigate the user interface.
Usability Testing
What are the specific points of friction in the product?
To find the specific pain points within the product, I created a pilot study for user-testing the Keka Setup flow. I tested 5 flows of the "Setup Tasks" page with 5 teammates who were not familiar with their respective flows.
Key Findings
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It takes 4 clicks to reach product tutorials, which are hidden under the “Chat with us” prompt.
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Product tutorials consist of 41 YouTube videos, each 40 minutes long.
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Roles and permissions assignments are unclear.
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No error prevention mechanisms within each module.
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No links back to the checklist, breaking the setup flow.
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No onboarding help within each module.
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The functionality of checklists under setup is confusing.
Results
Other Recommendations
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Module-specific step-by-step onboarding.
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Contextual help for first-time users.
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Direct invitations for HR team members to streamline setup.
Features Added
YouTube Chapters
A quick and easy way to help customers through setting up the product.
Module-Wise Contextual Help
Keka has now implemented contextual help using Pendo, to add information modals with video and text.
Documentation
My research served as a pilot study.
I documented my research in a FigJam file, outlining information, product screenshots and examples for future design and development of product onboarding.
Typical Product Onboarding Techniques
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Reflections
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Roping in more stakeholders: Looking back, I would have included more PMs to get a better grasp of our challenges to chalk up more specific research questions.
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Including quantitative analyses questions: If I had included more measurable product metrics, I would have been able to direct my research to directly link it to revenue earned through customer acquisition.
Thank you for reading!
Project Overview
A rapidly expanding product startup needs a seamless onboarding experience. When tapping in to a new market segment of smaller startups, a handheld onboarding process is expensive. Here's how I tried to understand the gaps in Keka's onboarding process.
What's Keka HR?
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Employee Experience Platform
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B2B SaaS Startup
Timeline
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March to May 2023
My Role
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Competitor Study
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Customer Journey Mapping
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Usability Tests
Tools
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Figjam, Figma
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Notion
The Challenge
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Improve product onboarding
for SMEs.
Impact
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Deployed product tutorials
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Setting user context for designers
Scope
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Understanding Pre-boarding and onboarding of HRMS Softwares.
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Discovery research for Keka's onboarding gaps.
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No access to end users or UX Research Ops.
-
3 month timeline.
Constraints
"He was meticulous, hardworking and had a keen eye for design. His user research techniques were robust, elaborate and well-documented. He also made it a point to interact with other designers, developers and Product Managers to understand the problem and churn out solutions accordingly."
Read the full recommendation on Linked In!
This is what my manager said about me!
My manager at Keka was Ashwin Shroff, a Senior Product Designer at Keka.
Research Questions
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What are the difficulties that new/potential customers of Keka face during customer onboarding?
-
What are our customers' expectations when trying the product for the first time?
Methodology
Chalking up a problem statement
It is difficult for potential or new customers of Keka to set up and use the products efficiently for their organization's needs, therefore increasing the churn rate.
Competitor Study
After studying the onboarding processes of 6 Direct US-based Competitors and 4 indirect competitors, I presented these findings:
Findings - Must haves
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Quick setups with minimal human intervention.
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Responsive Customer Support. (Keka excels at this!)
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Flexible Free trials - a limited period of free trial for customers to try the features.
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Contextual Help - In-app guidance while using different features of the product.
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Interactive guide to introduce different products in the Keka Suite.
Nice-to-haves:
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Demo Content - show customers how the platform looks once data is populated into it.
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Easily navigable knowledge base. (video tutorials, documentation)
Customer Journey Mapping
Keka has an excellent customer success team that gets in touch with new and potential customers to customize all Keka products.
I interviewed 4 members of the Customer Success team to understand the journey thoroughly.
Key findings:
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Lengthy onboarding process.
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25-40 days on average.
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Heavy dependency on Keka to navigate user interface.
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Cleaning and preparing data is the longest step.
Usability Testing
To find the specific pain points within the product, I created a pilot study for user-testing the Keka Setup flow. I tested 5 flows of the "Setup Tasks" page with 5 teammates who were not familiar with their respective flows.
Recommendations
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Module-wise guided onboarding: Each module should have its own onboarding help - designing walkthroughs or coachmarks for each is an easier method than overloading the users with all checklist items at once.
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Link checklist items to their specific functions: The current checklist needs to be operated manually, which confuses the users. Instead, having links to their specific functions which on completion marks the checklist for the user would be more intuitive and useful.
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Product Walkthroughs need chapters on YouTube: The product walkthrough videos are lengthy. Adding Chapters with specific features and functions of the product will be more useful.
Results
Youtube Chapters Updated!
Module-wise walkthroughs implemented!
Reflections
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Roping in more stakeholders: Looking back, I would have included more PMs to get a better grasp of our challenges to chalk up more specific research questions.
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Including quantitative analyses questions: If I had included more measurable product metrics, I would have been able to direct my research to directly link it to product churn rate.
UX Intern | Keka Technologies
February - May 2023 | Hyderabad, India
Let's Redesign an Employee Experience Platform.
... but it’s huge, so maybe just the onboarding for now.
What's Keka HR?
Keka HR is a one-stop solution for all HR needs. The B2B HR Management Software for enterprises allows HR teams to focus on employee experience, rather than mundane tasks like processing paperwork.
I interned at Keka as a UX Designer, for 4 months. My work was independent - I conducted preliminary evaluations of the customer onboarding process.
My Role and Initiatives
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Competitor Analysis helped set an expectation for what a delightful HRMS product should feel like for customers.
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With no functional UX Research division, I gave the product design team context of how our users perceive the product with usability tests.
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The pilot study revealed specific areas of friction in the customer onboarding journey and set a precedent for further research efforts.
Problem Statement
It is difficult for potential or new users of Keka to set up and use the products effectively for their organization's needs, therefore increasing the churn rate.
So, who's our competition?
How are our customers onboarded?
Keka has an excellent customer success team that gets in touch with new and potential customers to customize all Keka products. Let's look at how it works with a customer journey map.
I interviewed 4 members of the Customer Success team (I did not have direct access to customers as an intern) to understand the journey thoroughly.
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According to the Customer Success team, it takes anywhere between 20-45 days to fully onboard a new customer onto the platform. This is a long time for smaller organisations.
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Customers must go through the hassle of scheduling regular calls with Keka's team to use the product to its full potential.
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Customers have to be willing and prepared to bring cleaned data sheets according to Keka's data import templates.
The key areas of unhealthy friction -
Let's user-test it, at least internally.
Let's nail down on what changes the interface needs.
To find the specific pain points within the product, I created a pilot study for user-testing the Keka Setup flow.
Insights
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The Keka Setup page has multiple steps leading to different modules, which do not link back to the setup process.
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The functionality of checklists under setup is confusing.
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No onboarding help within each module.
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Customers would not be able tell what roles to assign an employee to complete Keka Setup.
Reflections on a quick cycle of UX Research.
My journey with Keka, though short, was empowering. It taught me how SaaS product teams function, and most importantly how to collaborate with product managers and developers.
I was given ownership of UX research that helped bring the designers of Keka more context of our users before the team hired a UX Research team.
I am grateful to the organization for the skills they helped foster and to my coworkers for their guidance and support!
"He was meticulous, hardworking and had a keen eye for design. His user research techniques were robust, elaborate and well-documented. He also made it a point to interact with other designers, developers and Product Managers to understand the problem and churn out solutions accordingly."
Read the full recommendation on Linked In!
This is what my manager said about me!
My manager at Keka was Ashwin Shroff, a Senior Product Designer at Keka.