Our UXR team came up with the template and I tweaked it to give more adequate information for Subscriptions.

In general at Clover, once the team decides they need to conduct a study, e.g in discovery phase, or validation of ideas, the PM uses this template to provide details to their Designer or User Researcher. They will then design the study based on input from this doc.

We have a central user research team who serve many product teams and this is also part of the intake process. This doc is attached to the Jira ticket and the central team will prioritize which projects to take on. If they can't take it on they will provide guidance to the designer to conduct the research. The designer / researcher then come up with the design of the study.

My team likes the PM to provide a vision statement or a hypothesis statement. This provides direction to the team. This statement doesn't necessarily mean that the product has been decided. This research plus experiments would help the team decide what the final product would be.

To land on Subscriptions, We initially looked at data from price sensitivity surveys, plus feedback from existing products and channels and stakeholders to formulate our hypothesis.

We knew we needed some kind of subscription product but how that is priced, packaged, positioned and made available was all to be figured out. The research done here was to inform the product decisions.

A key point here is that the customer for my channel - (self service) is very different from the customer for other channels. This research provided the team data to influence stakeholders to make the key decisions.

There were a few key decisions I needed to drive with stakeholders:

We had to make a tradeoff decision between revenue generated from higher margins from a subscription type product vs acquisition - high price point can lower acquisition.

The price sensitivity survey data was great to provide us high and low bounds but we did not understand customer sentiment around the price points, their perceived price and the why behind it.

We needed to make a decision to have only one subscription price or 2 options of pricing. Our product is a combination of hardware and software similar to Peloton and SAAS pricing models do not completely apply to us.

Finally figuring out time commitment was critical. The customer would be signing a longer term commitment and we had a few options to play with. Understanding what customers think about it, react to each, which one they choose and why was critical to identify through the research. Setting up these commitments was a significant effort for the company and kind of a one way door decision.

There are two approaches to who develops these questions:

The PM can take first stab at questions as they are more central, and the Designer / Researcher will provide feedback and input.

You can do a brainstorming session with all key stakeholders including Sales, Design, Marketing, Customer Success, etc.

Doing user research before or after initial design mocks depends on the needs and stage of the product. For a 0-1 product or new discovery you will not have designs. In a study for that example, we just wanted to observe how businesses go about finding their right payment solution so we observed their process and asked questions.

In this Subscription case we had some data to come up with initial hypothesis so we wanted to also include some initial concepts and see what resonates with customers and get their feedback.

We generally do mockups via Figma. Our customers are SMB and we found high quality feedback from high fidelity mockups.

In Growth we have to move at fast pace while being data-informed and having limited resources so we constantly are making tradeoff decisions of how to conduct research studies. Is it really needed? Is it better to just put something out there and A/B test? How much time should we spend on the study and who should we include?

Continuous Discovery (Teresa Torres) is something we aspire towards but aren't there yet.

Monil Shah

At Clover the PM uses this template to provide details to their Designer or User Researcher and then design their study based on input they gather here.

 (a new affordable way to pay for products on a monthly basis with many added benefits) to help customers buy the right solution at an affordable price.

looking to purchase a solution to not only take payments but to also run and grow my business

the current product offerings are very expensive. E.g. package A is at $X 

have to consider other competitive products at affordable prices

Research Question aka "the Business Decision you need to make"

Can customers understand the value of the subscriptions payment option?

Between X, Y and Z month terms, which are more preferred by customers and why?

Is the subscriptions information organized in the most helpful way to maximize the likelihood that customers make the right product decision for their business?

Which customers prefer subscriptions over full purchase payment options and why?

What do they think about the pricing options?

Did the customer understand how subscription pricing works ? Did they have specific questions?

For segments A, B, C, will the customer choose Subscriptions or Upfront Purchase, why?

How do the customers feel about pricing and value compared to competition? Does this change by introducing a subscription option?

We will make decisions on the designs for showing subscriptions based on the feedback we receive from this research, reducing risk before developing the solution and launching a product

Identify your ideal customer profile (ICP) based on firmographic, environmental, behavioral attributes.

Define inclusion and exclusion criteria based on research objectives

Determine the sample size based on guidance from research team or statistical significance calculators

Ensure you follow ethical standards based on your company guidelines

Identify recruitment methods. We use usertesting.com to recruit prospect customers and an internal team for existing customers.

A research project like this typically takes 2-3 weeks

Please list any related JIRAs; e.g., engineering, or previous research:

Option 1: Prototype of landing page - Existing content bundle summaries with toggle 

Option 2: Prototype of landing page - Added description, tweak list items

To be filled out with questions to ask customers.

We try to begin with get to know you conversations  where we try to learn a little bit more about the customer and them to know about us and the objective

Follow a logical flow in your product or in general and move to specific questions

Be respectful and mindful of their privacy

Avoid overwhelming customers with questions

Choose the type of communication, moderated, unmoderated or both, video or voice based, in person or virtual. Do a trial run first.

User Research Brief at Clover

Business Goal and Background

Customer Problem:

Research Question aka "the Business Decision you need to make"

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