Attempting to increase the app referrals of Pharmeasy
A UX Design Case Study
How often do you find yourself referring a product or service to someone? What motivates you to refer it to someone? Do you like the product and want to share it with your dear ones or do you just do it for the sake of benefits? But why am I asking you these questions? Okay, let me tell you.
As a Product Designer, I was given a task, a task which looked small on the surface but was deep enough to make me think and read about it for days. The task was to “Increase the referrals of the product Pharmeasy”. The questions I asked you are the same questions I asked others as a part of my research. I wanted to understand the psychology of the users. Before I showcase the process I did to accomplish the task, let me give you a brief about this product.
What is PharmEasy ?
PharmEasy is a consumer healthcare “super app”.
PharmEasy is a consumer healthcare “super app” that provides consumers with on-demand, home delivered access to a wide range of prescription, OTC pharmaceutical, other consumer healthcare products, comprehensive diagnostic test services, and tele-consultations thereby serving their healthcare needs.
“To change the face of healthcare in India, one consumer at a time.”
First have a look at the prototype I made
Below is the how the final solution for the given task looks like in real world. You can also view the working prototype here.
Let me show you the changes I suggest in detail in a step wise manner. But first, here’s the flow within the app I was working on.
Referral Flow
The challenge was to keep the flow within scope since the longer flow could lead to higher turnaround time.
Now that we know the flow that I worked upon, lets move ahead and see the changes I made in the entire flow.
- Homepage
Changed Banner: A banner related to referral was introduced into the hero section carousel. The banner was changed after usability testing to make it appear more serious, less cluttered and to make it appear more clickable.
10% OFF button: This button is intended to make a person curious about the discount and take him directly to the referral page.
2) Offers Page
Referral Offer: A 10% OFF referral coupon is added to the offers section as well. This will take a user to the referrals page.
3) Account
10% OFF notifier: A 10% OFF text in red colour is added on Refer and Earn button to make it more attention grabbing.
4) Refer and Earn
a) Share referral links via other options: Presence of only Share via WhatsApp option is confusing for the users if they want to share via other mediums.
b) FAQ & Help Sections: These are added for the users as it was observed that people have doubts during the process and they don’t find it easy to find the answers.
Check rewards window: This provides an option to the users to see who has used the referral code shared by them.
But how did I come up with all these solutions?
This takes us back to the questions I put up before you at the beginning of the article. I started with research and those questions were a part of my research.
The research process was divided into two major parts which are:
a) Primary Research
b) Secondary Research
Both of these have further research methodologies linked to them. As we move ahead we will go through them one by one. But let me first define the problem more clearly.
What is the actual problem?
● Problem Statement: Evaluate the referral flow of Pharmeasy, which includes referring the product to a new user and redesign the experience to make the product design better.
● How it impacts the business?: With the increased referrals, there would be acquisition of new users which turn out to be profitable for the business given that existing users are retained.
● Who are the users?: Pharmeasy’s consumers, i.e., the users of the website. Those who avail of features, services and products the company’s website as well as app have to offer. These users would primarily be seeking for medical supplies in order to treat or cure a certain disease, medical condition or health concern of their or that of someone they know of.
My hunt for insights from the research
I started with secondary research. The first task I did was to check the flow for usability issues. I did that by employing a technique called Heuristic Evaluation which uses the 10 heuristics given by Jakob Nielsen which define how usable a product actually is, combined with Intuition based evaluation which uses the intuition of a designer to find the faults.
A severity score is given (out of 3) to the faults that were recognized to prioritize what was important and then solve for low severity issues to cover all the edge cases.
Heuristics & Intuition based evaluation
After completing the evaluation and finding out where Pharmeasy lacks in terms of usability, I wanted to learn what the competitors are up to? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
This led to Competitive Research
Major competitors which I studied are:
- Apollo 24|7
Insights Identified:
● Referral benefits are more clear.
● Check Rewards option available.
Insights Identified:
● Way to refer page on the home screen next to cart icon through the wallet button.
2) Tata 1 Mg
Insights Identified:
● Multiple options for sharing referral code/link.
● My Credits shows available credits.
● Terms and Conditions written.
Other competitive research data:
Since the product referrals are directly dependent on the experience a user has with the product, all types of data were valuable.
Psychology behind referrals
The psychology behind referral programs is based on several key factors that make them effective.
● One of the most important factors is social proof, which refers to the tendency of people to follow the actions of others. When someone receives a recommendation from a friend or family member, they are more likely to trust and act on that recommendation because it is coming from someone they know and trust.
● Another important factor is reciprocity, which refers to the human tendency to feel obligated to return a favor or kindness. When someone receives a positive experience or reward from a business, they may feel inclined to refer others to that business as a way of returning the favor.
● In addition to social proof and reciprocity, other psychological factors that contribute to the effectiveness of referral programs include the desire for belongingness and the power of incentives. People are often motivated to participate in referral programs because they want to feel like they are part of a community or tribe, and incentives such as discounts or rewards can provide a powerful motivator for people to refer others to a business.
Overall, the psychology behind referral programs is based on the idea that people are more likely to trust and act on the recommendations of others, especially when they have a personal connection or relationship with that person. By understanding these psychological factors and incorporating them into their referral programs, businesses can increase their chances of success and drive more referrals from their existing customers.
Talking directly to the users
Now that I had studied what the internet had to say about Pharmeasy, it’s competitors and the psychology of referral in general, it was time to engage directly with the users and empathize with them.
Planning the user interviews and usability testing
- Tasks for the users
● Open the app.
● Browse the homepage.
● Refer the app to someone.
● Go to help and documentation.
● Refer someone via email.
2. What to observe during tasks?
● How much time users are taking to go to the refer and earn page.
● Are they able to find the refer and earn page?
● Does something nudge them to go to refer page without me giving a task.
● Are they able to understand the benefits of referring someone.
3. Probing Questions
● How often do you purchase something from a medical store?
● How far is the medical store from your house?
● Do you know about online pharmacy services?
● Which service have you used?
● How was your experience with the product?
● Why do you use the product and why not others?
● What makes you trust/not trust any product or service?
● How often do you recommend any product or service to anyone?
● Do you generally refer anyone to use the service?
● What is your motivation behind the referral?
● How many people do you generally refer to?
● What are your thoughts about referring a pharmacy service or product?
● How important are discounts to you?
● How easy you feel to refer someone?
Creating Human Personas
The usability test performed on the users along with the probing questions asked provided me with following insights about the users:
Validating the problems
With the insights gathered during research, I was able to verify the problems that were identified in the initial stages of research i.e. through secondary research methods.
The problems verified are:
- No mention of referral on home screen — Fully Verified.
- Position of Refer and Earn is low in account page — Partially Verified.
- Other Share options unavailable on Refer and Earn page — Fully Verified.
- Help and Documentation not easily accessible — Partially Verified.
- Available discounts not visible — Verified.
- No mention about how much discount the person who is being referred will get — Not Verified.
Ideating the solutions by How Might We (HMW) method
With this I was done with the ideation part and by now I had a clear picture in my mind about what I had to do. I opened my Figma, moved few things here and there, made quite a few adjustments and was able to ship a revamped product which serves my purpose. But, that was not the end. How could I be sure that what I did was solving the problem and if users were able to understand it?
And then I tested the product with the users
During the user testing process, I scheduled meetings with 4 different people who use online pharmacy apps in general. I made sure the instructions I gave to them were clear and was noticing their expressions while they were performing the given tasks. This gave me a near about clear understanding of how they felt while performing the task.
The insights I gathered after user testing were:
- Referral banner introduced does not feel serious and does not prompt a user to click.
2) 5% discount is less and the 10% OFF on home screen does not look clickable.
3. No Refer and Earn discount in offers section.
The finished product
With all the tasks now completed, the final product which I had shown you at the beginning of the case study was finally ready. The problem was solved at last. Here, have a look at the finished product now that you know the work behind it.
Conclusion & Takeaways
Working on an online pharmacy app opened for me gates for new learnings in a field I had never explored before. I got an opportunity to understand the problems users face with the product and how the psychology related to a product or service impacts the business of that product.
My business goal by solving the problem of low referrals was to increase new user acquisition. By usability testing I was able to guess that yes, it might lead to new user acquisition and the solution works. But of course, the solution can only be tested in real world by tracking the relevant data.
With this I conclude my work and hopefully I leave you all with some new learnings which could be beneficial to you.
Thank You 🙏
Chetanya Batra
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetanyabatra/
Email: chetanya.batra@gmail.com
Major References:
● https://nh1design.com/project/pharmeasy
● https://www.similarweb.com/website/pharmeasy.in/#ranking
● https://growsurf.com/blog/referral-programs-work-this-is-why
