Rebuilding the coach funnel around the question people were really asking
The brief was the enrolment flow. But revenue needs both halves: the right people arriving, and a funnel that can hold them.
21 days → 11 days
Average signup-to-conversion, after the launch
Design Manager
2 designers
6+ months, two phases
Individual contributor + Leader
01 — The brief, and what was under it
Increase revenue. Improve the coach enrolment flow.
Nobody knew why people were leaving. Analytics knew which screens lost them. Support, through call-back conversations, knew what those people had been confused about. Location plus cause gave a diagnosis neither could give alone.
02 — The insight
They weren’t unconvinced. They were undecided.
Friction looks like
EnterTime on listing →
What we saw
EnterTime on listing →
Schematic. We never instrumented dwell time. The symptom came from support conversations and community posts, not an event.
No specialisationWho is this coach for?
Stars, no reviewsReviews lived on another screen.
No way to compareHad to open both profiles.
03 — The strategy
People choose a coach the way they choose a doctor.
The right comparison was Practo app, not an e-commerce checkout. People want credentials, a specialisation, some sense of how many others this person has treated, ratings, and reviews they can interrogate. Almost every decision in this project comes out of that one call.The brief was the enrolment flow. I mapped from lead generation to payments, then built the part I owned.11stages mapped
5stages in the brief
~40cards, each tagged with the job it does
04 — The decisions
We changed it one piece at a time.
No big-bang revamp. Each change went live on its own, so users got used to one before the next arrived.Phase 1 tested the idea inside the old design. Phase 2 rebuilt the flow.
Phase 1~4 months
Small changes inside the existing appPhase 2~2 months
The full flow, redesigned04/Phase 1
A small fix at every step.
Tap a screen to see it in full.
Scroll sideways to follow the journey
1
Onboarding2
Find a coach3
Pick a plan4
CheckoutHealth conditions
Nothing visible on the day. Groundwork, to reach those users later.Recently viewed
Most people enrol with a coach they had already opened. The funnel forgot them.Talk to an expert
An A/B found people who talk to support convert better.Coach plans
Revamped inside the old UI guidelines. Drop-off fell — direction, not size.Shown: the old screen, before this fix.EMI and UPI
Support had found the blocker. Payment options went live months early.- 1OnboardingHealth conditionsNothing visible on the day. Groundwork, to reach those users later.
- 2Find a coachRecently viewedMost people enrol with a coach they had already opened. The funnel forgot them.Talk to an expertAn A/B found people who talk to support convert better.
- 3Pick a planCoach plansRevamped inside the old UI guidelines. Drop-off fell — direction, not size.Shown: the old screen, before this fix.
- 4CheckoutEMI and UPISupport had found the blocker. Payment options went live months early.
04/Phase 2
Redesigned full flow. New UI, better UX.
Thesis 01
Add memory to the funnel.
People arrive with a name from a referral, so search moved into thumb reach and specialisations became searchable. A home nudge fires when someone drops out of checkout, so they can pick up where they left off.the funnel stopped starting over1
Search moved to the bottom, and specialisations became searchable too.Searches rose 5%
2
Home page nudge to resume an abandoned checkout.8% of drop-outs recovered
−35%
Time to conversion, from recently searched and recently viewed. This sits inside the signup-to-conversion reduction rather than adding to it. We never measured conversion rate, so what I can claim is that people converted sooner, not that more of them converted.
Thesis 02
Fix the memory and they will come back, but..
they still need to choose their coach.
Where do I even start?Is this coach for me?
The listing gave people no way to judge anyone on it, so a long look ended in an exit. The card now carries specialisation, tier, rating, review summary, skill tags, slots left and a filling-fast marker, with a recommended list to start from.Every field answers a question people already asked
Explaining the tiers
Nobody knew what standard, advance and premium meant, or why they should care. It was a vocabulary problem, so we solved it with motion rather than a help article.Reviews you can interrogate
Searchable by keyword: weight loss, diabetes, guidance, accountability. You read the reviews that match your own situation instead of whichever ones happen to be newest.
Thesis 03
The funnel didn’t need more people. It needed readier ones.
We matched entry points to user intent. Pre-diabetic users starting a reversal journey already had a clear reason to seek coaching, so we surfaced it at the right moment.For existing users, a temporary dot on the coaching icon and a highlighted GAC quick link increased visibility without adding traffic. Both disappeared once users engaged.
A dot and the golden circle for Get a coach
+25%
It increased the entries to Get A Coach
It raised visibility. It did not raise intent, which is why the intent work mattered.Other decisions can be found in the full case study.
05 — Prototype
The flow, end to end
Key screens
06 — The outcome
21 days to 11.
1.9x
Faster to enrol.Readier people coming in, and fewer reasons to stall once inside. Average signup-to-enrolment fell from 21 days to 11.+6%
Revenue.Revenue growth after the funnel changes launched.+30%
Entries to Get A Coach.Existing users entering the funnel. It raised visibility, not intent, which is why the intent work mattered.There was no A/B test and no control group on the Phase 2 changes. These are movements observed after launch, not effects isolated to individual features.Some of the cycle-time improvement is composition. We deliberately brought in people who were closer to deciding. That was the point, not a confound.
07 — Reflection
What I’d do differently.
1
Ship what the evidence already supports; design what it doesn't.
EMI and UPI didn't wait six months for a redesign. They went live on the old checkout the moment support's data made the case.2
Validate cheaply on the product you already have.
Phase 1 tested the diagnosis inside the existing UI, so the two-month investment was made against proven assumptions rather than a hunch.3
You can't always have the page.
Checkout was locked behind legacy code, so the work moved to what we could edit. Constraints relocate the design. They don't cancel it.Not every funnel problem is a friction problem.The instinct with drop-off is to remove steps. These people needed more information, not fewer screens. They were deciding, not queuing.
The full version