Discovery & Definition

Podium users were unable to manage their billing information, invoices, and subscription directly through the product. This lead to inconvenience, frustration and a high volume of support tickets as users were unable to make necessary updates and access important information easily themselves.  

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We recognized the need to introduce a net-new subscription management hub into the product in order to streamline customer support processes. The hub was intended to empower customers to self-serve for account updates, billing inquiries, cancellation requests, and the manual expansion of their plan through add-ons and upgrades—ultimately enhancing the customer experience and reducing the support backlog. This also introduced a new stream of revenue for Podium.

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Prior to the start of this project, Podium solved a lot of their problems through a process we called“swivel chair,” meaning someone had to manually update changes on the backend for every request. These manual processes created a lot of technical constraints for the team.

Discovery & Definition

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Challenges & Opportunities

User Problem — Podium users were facing difficulty managing their billing information, invoices, and subscription manually. This was leading to inconvenience and frustration as users were unable to make necessary updates and access important information easily.

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Business Problem — First, Podium was receiving a large volume of support cases that was straining the support team and affecting customer satisfaction. This was taking up significant support resources and leading to reduced efficiency and increased cost. Roughly 30% of support cases were related to plan management, invoices, or billing inquiries and CSAT was hovering around 43% at the start of the project.

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Secondly, Podium was losing out on in-app expansion opportunities — this meant that potential growth revenue was being missed, which could have been captured if users were able to easily upgrade their plans or purchase add-ons manually. If users were able to upgrade via self-serve then Podium could directly surface and promote those opportunities.

Discovery & Definition

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Challenges & Opportunities

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Ideation & Concept Development

I collaborated with cross-functional teams to address key priorities:

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1. Account Information: Enable users to update location, details, and billing info, reducing support needs.

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2. Billing and Contracts: Provide easy access to contract details and invoices for self-service billing inquiries.

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3. Expansion & Upgrades: Allow users to upgrade plans, switch billing cycles, and add features independently.

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4. Cancellation Requests: Simplify the cancellation process for better user experience and regulatory compliance.

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Subscription & Billing Hub

Podium

2023

Discovery & Definition

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Challenges & Opportunities

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Ideation & Concept Development

I collaborated with cross-functional teams to address key priorities:

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1. Account Information: Enable users to update location, details, and billing info, reducing support needs.

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2. Billing and Contracts: Provide easy access to contract details and invoices for self-service billing inquiries.

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3. Expansion & Upgrades: Allow users to upgrade plans, switch billing cycles, and add features independently.

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4. Cancellation Requests: Simplify the cancellation process for better user experience and regulatory compliance.

Process & Results

The new subscription hub was rolled out in phases to the user segments that we identified. First, to the customers on a standard (bundled) plan, then to new customers and those on a free-trial, and finally to customers with a custom plan.

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The phased rollout allowed us to solve for the more complex problem of how to deliver custom plan information to our users from the backend while also getting early learnings from the standardized plans.

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In addition to surfacing plan information we implemented the ability for users to update their contact and billing information through a simple modal approach as well as the addition of a dedicated section for invoices—allowing users to find and view historic payment and billing information easily.

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Overall, the project was a huge success. We saw a 30% decrease in the support tickets related to billing and subscription management which allowed the support team to focus on the companies retention efforts. We also saw an increase in user-driven expansion through users ability to upgrade their plan as well as switch to annual billing.

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