First diagnose, then treat

When founders ask me “how can we break through this plateau?” I tell them this story.

This was a marketplace for hiring home-care workers to look after elderly relatives. Growth had been flat for a year, until a researcher noticed something uncomfortable.

Their bottleneck was the search results page – people scrolled through candidates, but never clicked on anyone. That's odd.

Think about it: Why would you visit a home-carer site, search, and then scroll past dozens of candidates without clicking on a single one?

The team tried everything on that results page. Ratings, better pictures, hide prices, show reviews, more filters. At first, nothing worked.

Then, in a user test, a researcher noticed something uncomfortable.

The user clicked “search,” scrolled through a full page of results, clicked “next” and scrolled through another long page. Finally, on the third page, she clicked on a profile. It was the first white person.

I don’t like this. It’s horrible. It’s ugly. But it’s reality. And ignoring the ugly truths of customer behavior is exactly why that company had been flat for a year. 

They could have messed with that results page for years and never found it.*

Once diagnosed, the fix was obvious:

1. Set the right expectations: Replace the smiling blonde models on the homepage with photos of actual ethnically diverse carers, to set visitors’ expectations.

2. Remove the trigger: Hide the photos on the search results pages.

Fixed. Off to the races…

What does this have to do with you?

Everything.

Every growth plateau has the same shape:

You need to get people to do a thing they’re not doing.

Click, subscribe, pay, activate, recommend.

And there’s a reason they’re not doing it. And fixing it is a lot easier if you know why they're stuck in the first place.

So how do you find out?

Simple next step

If you’ve hit a plateau, take a step back. First, where’s the drop off? Home page? Paywall? App store? Activation?

Then, ask the only question that matters: Why aren’t they taking the next step?

• Comprehension: Maybe they don’t understand how you can help them

• Trust: Maybe they don’t believe it

• Urgency: Maybe they don’t really need it right now, or they’re busy with something else.

Don’t make assumptions. Watch people use your product. Interview people who dropped off. Ask new customers what almost made them drop off.

First diagnose, then treat.

I hope this helps

M@

*No, the marketers at that company were not all white. But it helps to have more diverse team, with people who look like the folks they needed to impress.