Enhancing Customer Experience to Boost Conversions and Minimize Support Calls

My role

  • User Research

  • Prototyping & UX Design

  • Built and maintained a cohesive design system across all platforms

Results

  • Increased Conversions

  • Reduced Customer Service Calls

  • Higher Customer Retention

Project Overview:

Before Chewy became a household name, Pet4u was the first and largest online pet food delivery retailer in the United States.

Background

Pet4u was once the leading online retailer for pet food delivery in the U.S., pioneering convenience for pet owners with its online ordering model.

However, with the rapid growth of Chewy, Pet4u’s dominance began to decline.

Chewy’s success was driven by two fundamental elements:
an exceptional customer-first experience and an intuitive, easy-to-navigate website.

Pet4u struggled to maintain this level of service, particularly in providing efficient customer support and offering an easy-to-use platform for their customers.

As Chewy’s dominance increased, it became clear that Pet4u’s website needed a major overhaul. To regain its competitive edge, Pet4u needed to focus on simplifying the user journey and improving the customer experience—especially around its subscription services. The goal was to provide a seamless experience that allowed customers to manage their subscriptions independently while offering the flexibility they needed.

The Challenge

Identifying Pain Points to Boost Customer Satisfaction

User Research

Our user research, conducted through customer reviews, surveys, and feedback from the support team, identified several pain points that were major sources of frustration:

Complex auto-ship ordering process that made it difficult for users to place orders quickly.

Difficulties managing subscriptions, including the inability to easily modify or cancel orders without contacting customer service.

Navigation challenges, where users struggled to find products quickly, leading to frustration and abandonment.

This led to the development of a persona to help guide us in the design phase

User Persona:

Margaret “Jill”Thompson

Margaret Thompson is a retired senior and devoted pet owner who values convenience, accessibility, and trust when purchasing food for her dog, Bailey.

She prefers home delivery to avoid the hassle of carrying heavy bags and relies on auto-ship subscriptions to ensure Bailey never runs out of food.

However, Margaret often faces frustrations with complex ordering systems, making it difficult for her to complete purchases smoothly.

Key Issues to Address

To ensure the project was focused on the most impactful areas, we prioritized the following:

  1. Simplifying the auto-ship ordering process

  2. Improving subscription management to provide users with greater control

  3. Enhancing navigation and search to improve product discovery

Wire frames

Streamlined Ordering Process

The first priority was simplifying the complex auto-ship ordering process to make it more intuitive and user-friendly. To achieve this, we:

  • Reduced the number of steps needed to complete an order, creating a smoother flow for users.

  • Implemented clear instructions and visual cues that guided users through each step, ensuring they knew exactly where they were in the process.

By streamlining the ordering process, we not only enhanced user satisfaction but also reduced cart abandonment, directly contributing to increased conversions.

Enhanced Subscription Management

  • Previously, users struggled to manage their subscriptions, often having to call customer service just to make changes. We implemented flexible subscription options, giving users more control:

    • Users could now adjust or pause deliveries independently, reducing reliance on customer support.

    • The cancellation process was simplified, removing the need to contact customer service and significantly improving the overall user experience.

    These changes not only improved satisfaction but also reduced the number of customer service calls related to subscription management, allowing the support team to focus on more complex issues.

Improved Navigation and Search

  • Finding specific products was a frequent source of frustration for customers. We revamped the site’s navigation and search capabilities to ensure that users could locate products quickly and efficiently. This included:

    • Refining the category pages, organizing products in a way that made browsing easier.

    • Implementing Elasticsearch for Magento 2, a scalable search engine known for its speed and accuracy. This upgrade allowed us to introduce advanced features like full-text search, autocomplete, and fuzzy search—helping users find even the most specialized products with ease.

Conclusion

By tackling the key issues of complex auto-ship processes, subscription management, and difficult site navigation, we were able to significantly improve Pet4u's user experience.

The streamlined design not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also led to increased conversions and reduced customer service calls. Through user-centric design solutions, Pet4u began its journey toward reclaiming its spot as a leader in the online pet food delivery space.