One of the most interesting parts of being a product manager is learning about customers — even when they prove your preconceptions wrong. Sometimes personas look entirely different than anyone on the team would expect, and that’s fine. That’s why you do the research. And because of that, I won’t presume to know the needs or wants of every potential Helix customer.

But there is one thing any commerce site should perfect — and few have — and that’s their conversion funnel. So that’s what I’ll focus on here.

Helix needs to create a user conversion monster. And when I say monster, I mean a black-hole vortex of conversions (without the interstellar spaghettification).

Essentially, semi-interested potential customers need to feel comfortable and confident about their potential purchase.

The wary customer needs to trust Helix ASAP in their journey. Once they do, Helix will see their acquisition:conversion ratio power upward.

There are lots of ways to do this. They can reduce the steps it takes to convert (without losing the necessary info they need to get), improve copy to help users understand what they see, and take measures to make every step of the way as intuitive and easy as possible.

Below, I’ll map out (and do a little wireframing) what I would do at Helix to help improve the product, help them learn from their customers more easily, and boost conversions through an improved user funnel.

And why worry about the funnel? Because this will have a direct impact on revenue.

Just for some quick context: If the conversion rates and traffic change like this (this is just an example), they’ll find huge gains from some minimal product improvements:

That’s 3,000 mattresses sold monthly. 36,000 mattresses sold annually.

Our Key Result: $36,000,000 in annual revenue, a $24,000,000 improvement.

Combine this with increased traffic, improvements in other parts of the business, and learning even more about our customers, and you get a self-improving Conversion Monster that boosts conversion rates and revenue.

So let’s indeed increase those conversions, starting with some product changes, and ending with a broader feature.

How to increase conversion rates

So, if the problem is a funnel with room to improve (improving meaning more people arriving on the site and buying a mattress), I’d hypothesize that making the funnel clearer and shorter will help improve it. If successful, this would result in higher conversion rates, faster funnel times, and increased sales and revenue.

Here’s how I’d approach this hypothesis:

Address the segment of customers who are impatient — Reduce the steps between the first and final steps without losing info vital to the product (personas/opinions/frustrations may differ on how easy the funnel is, but you can almost always reduce steps without losing quality). Address the segment of customers who are wary about dropping $1,000 — Show users a Helix mattress’s value before asking them to answer questions. Answering questions is a perceived cost that might be a deterrent. Address the segment of customers who have never purchased a custom mattress before — Assure people unfamiliar with ordering custom mattresses aren’t intimidated or confused. This would address the segment of customers who have never done this before, including first-time Helix customers.

We can’t reasonably test all of these adequately and quickly (and cheaply) without developing too many things off the bat, so let’s split them up into small pieces.

This way we can learn as much as possible with as little effort as possible — the name of the game.

Goal 1. Reducing the number of steps in the funnel process

A quick step-by-step tree of the conversion funnel shows a 17-step process to purchase a mattress while on desktop.

Make it shorter!

Seventeen steps is manageable, but some features and changes could streamline the process, even if each doesn’t necessarily reduce an entire “step.”

I’ll list these changes below, along with how I’d test each and each’s Key Performance Indicators.

Tactic A. Educating users by moving information around could be beneficial

Proponents of game-thinking would say that the user should feel more empowered and confident internally at the end of their process. Helix provides them a lot of value with the customized-mattress landing page, but they can also focus on educating users.

I propose a user will feel more confident if they know “why” they showed them this mattress, instead of just showing it to them.

That’s why I’d move the explainers that sit below the fold on the customized-mattress landing page and either add them as info bubbles or as straight-up text where it shows your “feel,” “support,” “temp. regulation,” and “point elasticity” meters.

KPI: The rate of users who add the mattress to their cart from the customized-mattress landing page goes up.

Tactic B. Making the 10-step quiz faster and more fluid is a quick fix

While submitting your quiz answers, the quiz can feel a bit stagnant. I’d have the quiz automatically scroll down for you, similar to a Typeform. Once you answer one question, you see the next one right in front of you.

This would ideally reduce the time it takes to take the quiz and push users to their results — a window into the main value Helix provides — faster.

KPI: If the time on this page decreased and the total users who finish this page end up converting, we can consider this a success.

Tactic C. It might be useful to remove the email confirmation page between the end of the quiz and the customized-mattress landing page

I already said I don’t want to give you my email!

If this page comes up, this would be at least the second time they ask for a customer’s email address without showing the customer any customization value — their main value proposition — yet. If they said no the first time and Helix hasn’t really moved the chains at all, then the customer will no again.

I’d remove this page altogether to save a step.

KPI: Fewer bounces after the quiz.

Tactic D. Let’s get them into the quiz ASAP

Even though it’s good to show value before showing a customer the cost, giving them the option to start the quiz as often as possible might prove beneficial.

Want to take the quiz? Here’s your entrance!

The “start customizing” button appears above the fold on the “how it works” page, but is not visible above the fold on the other three ‘about’ pages.

Like on the homepage, where scrolling down prompts an anchored “start customizing” button on the bottom of the screen, a button should live on all pages.

Please take quiz!

KPI: The amount of people who arrive on the site and take the quiz increases

Goal 2. Assuring nobody is dropping off because of uncertainty or confusion

While filling out the quiz, there are some questions that might be a bit confusing.

It’s more the nature of the quiz rather than the copy, because the copy is solid.

But talking about something like the “feel” of a mattress could be a bit foreign for someone.

It’s great that Helix offers phone support on that question, but customers might feel more comfortable chatting with someone on instant message instead of making a phone call.

Fortunately, that chat window is already there.

This is a simple and minimal improvement — I’d have the message box follow the customer down the screen with the prompt, “Have questions? Talk to our sleep specialists instantly,” to give customers more information at their disposal. This way, they aren’t left to be totally aware of their sleeping habits right off the bat.

KPI: Fewer drop-offs, increased quiz completion, increase total conversion rates for people who have a conversation with a specialist.

The ideas above are minor changes to the funnel that I think could have major effects on conversion rates. They’re minimal, but allow Helix to learn quite a bit about their customer.

If all changes were implemented, I’d find them worthwhile if they achieved key results that looked something like this (of course, these OKRs would be finalized by the team, who’d know the actual rates):

Total users who fully take the quiz increases by 100% in the three months following implementation Email collection rate increases by 25% in the the three months following implementation Conversion rates triple in the six months following implementation

More thoughts on improving Helix’s digital product

But there are also some bigger changes to the funnel Helix can make down the road, further along the roadmap.

For instance, if they have unsatisfactory conversion rates, building a mattress through something other than a straight-up quiz might be beneficial, too. Right now, the customized-mattress landing page allows you to “edit results,” but that link brings you back to the quiz page, where making some intentional adjustments to your mattress might seem like a guessing game as to which question impacts which part of the mattress. This makes any tweaks a customers wants harder than they ought to be.

My proposed MVP for this would be an alternate form users fill out where they can build their mattress by making the specific decisions themselves.

For example, instead of saying “I have broad shoulders,” I would respond “I want a lot of cushion.”

They already have the infrastructure for that type of data collection, and have similar pages and designs, so an alternate “quiz” would be relatively simple and minimal to build.

With this quick implementation they’d be able to learn:

If users want a little more control of the nuances of their mattress

For example, if they have broad shoulders but want a tougher mattress, they can make that choice

If they want to edit results after the quiz is taken, from the customized-mattress landing page

If they would rather be “guided” to their type of mattress without being forced into a final product based on their quiz answers

But mostly, Helix will learn:

Do people want to understand the components that correspond with each answer of the quiz?

Are people more likely to convert if they know exactly why their mattress was built how it was?

I envision it as something like this:

This serves as an easy way to understand if there is demand for more understanding while building a mattress, so that making any adjustments is easier for the customer.

There are three main components of the funnel’s customer education:

The explainers that describe why the mattress is built the way it is Answering the quiz’s question Your actual personalized mattres

Right now, they all live in different areas and even on different pages.

If Helix can consolidate all of this into one step, I think that’d help the funnel.

If successful, they can then can create visuals — similar to the ones that live in the explainer section of the personalized-mattress landing page — that highlight, change, and update as a customer answers each quiz question.

This would be a more intricate build.

Again, game-thinking would support that a user will feel more accomplished and different than they did in the beginning of the quiz.

Like many of the ideas above, the KPI here would be an increased in total conversions, and increase in completed quizzes.

The results

If Helix implemented each of these, I’d suspect their conversions and revenue blast off. But that could also be wrong. The result of starting on this is, first and foremost, Helix learning what works and what doesn’t and staying agile to move forward with the good stuff and changing the bad stuff.

As they learn about their customers, build their stories, and understand what everyone wants and needs from Helix, the conversion funnel will just improve and improve.