Incorporating Google Places to simplify the sign up flow and setting the groundwork for a cleaner database
Role and Team
Lead designer, partnering with product managers and engineering
Project Duration
4 months
Provi is a B2B online marketplace that serves the entire three-tier system of alcohol distribution. Restaurants, bars, and retailers can order for their beverage program all in one place, distributors can manage their customers and orders, and suppliers can increase their brand presence.
Prior to this project, the existing sign up flow for a retailer account was long and tedious. Retailers had to manually enter in their business information and individually find and connect with the distributors they order from. It was also difficult for the existing system to automatically identify the same retailer within and across datasets, preventing us from being able to efficiently connect a retailer account with the distributor account data we receive. The system only matched retailers to their distributors 30% of the time. In 70% of cases, someone had to make the connection manually.
The existing system that connects the Provi and distributor account data had a match rate of only 30%.
The sign up flow that existed included steps where a retailer account can connect their respective distributor accounts and sales rep, so they can be set up for ordering upon getting into the platform. However, there are big drop-off points here and the manual set up through Customer Success is unscalable. Only 15% of accounts were set up with a distributor. In addition to self sign up, there are other ways for an account to get created, which created to duplicate retailer accounts and contributed to a messy database.
The steps to add distributor information showed high drop off rates and only 15% of accounts were set up with at least one distributor.
In order for retailers to place orders with certain distributors on Provi, they need to have an existing and verified account with them. Because of this requirement, Provi attempts to automatically match retailers with their distributors to reduce the work retailers need to do to indicate which distributors they have an account with. To do this, Provi automatically compares the retailer’s business name and address entered during sign-up with the information provided by distributors. Because people often enter information differently, the system struggled to match accounts accurately. The existing system on Provi that connected accounts was not ideal because it created duplicates, resulted in partially set up accounts and contributed to a messy database.
In the first phase, we tested whether Google Places would work for matching retailers to distributors. We found that 98% of retailers had a match in Google Places, and 95% of these matched perfectly with the data from distributors. After determining Google Places was suitable and efficient in finding matches, the next phase was focused on the implementation of it in the Provi experience.
Following collaboration between engineering and product to test the viability of Google Places API for our systems, we leveraged it to improve multiple experiences, including the sign up flow. Using Places API, we were able to simplify the sign up flow and better match existing retailer businesses with corresponding account data from partner distributors.
Problem areas
Goal
Incorporate Google Places into the sign up flow to simplify the process and better match Provi retailer accounts with their respective distributor accounts to get them set up for placing orders
Google Places solved our account matching issue by creating a more uniform and efficient way of identifying retailers. Rather than requiring retailers to manually input their business information, which is prone to human error, we provided a way for them to identify their business with Google. We used Google Places to automatically match retailers to their distributors, which saved time and eliminated several manual steps during sign-up.
We removed redundant fields and the manual steps of entering distributor and sales rep information.
Since we've already determined that Google Places was a viable option that could find 98% of businesses and use that to match distributor accounts, requiring new users to manually enter known information would be unnecessary. If, for whatever reason, a retailer is unable to find their business, the manual flow remains as an alternative. But we expect that path to be used only as a last resort. The sign up flow is only one part of a multi-phase implementation project involving Google Places. This would eventually be incorporated into the internal tools as well as in different experiences within the platform overall.
Instead of a user manually adding their distributor account, we automatically made the connection for them.
With the initial release, we were seeing a decrease in the conversion rate on the business step of sign up; however, those who did convert were better set up to place orders. At the time of launch, Marketing increased paid search and social traffic by 70%, which likely affected the numbers. We hypothesized that the lower conversion was weeding out non-retailer/business related traffic, which meant better quality and more intentional new users. New accounts that were set up with at least one distributor and ready to place orders increased from 15% to 70%. Having at least one distributor connected to a retailer account makes it easier for them to submit orders because they don't need to go through the manual process of finding and connecting their distributor accounts.
Prior to the implementation of Google Places, 30% of the retailer and distributor matches were automated. This increased to 89% after the initial release.
We also discovered that more businesses than expected were unable to find a matching Google Place business and thus, resorted to the old manual flow. These businesses were either too new and have yet to be in the Places database, or had a business name different from what it operates as, and/or their registered business and physical business addresses were different.
Google Places not only made sign-up easier but also helped us organize retailers into groups, which improved the workflow for other teams. Customer Operations is able to better identify duplicates and close out inactive businesses, Marketing is better equipped to use distributor accounts as Total Addressable Market, the Sales team can better identify high value retailers, and so much more. There are still many improvements that can be made to the sign up experience, but for now Google Places is opening a lot of more opportunities to improve the Provi experience overall.
