Tala ·
Referrals

Customers mention hearing about Tala from a friend and telling others about Tala.
Despite this and a strong NPS score our data doesn’t show high referrals.

Overview

Responsibilities:

  • Create research plan

  • Moderate focus group sessions, ideation session, and user co-create session r

  • Create concept prototypes & high-fi designs

Business Problem

Lack of good attribution: We can only attribute the referral if the referred customer inputs the code during the loan application.

Funnel drop-off: Only 20% of customers complete the funnel and get a first loan. Thus 4 out 5 acquired customers won’t have the opportunity to refer anyone else to try Tala that might need it.

User Problem

Customers are unaware: Most customers aren’t aware that Tala has a referral option until they’ve taken out and paid back several loans. Before they discover the referral option, they are telling their friends about Tala but not receiving any credit.

Discovery

  • We analyzed the landscape for referral programs in each of our markets across industries. We assessed the popularity of referral programs, the key benefits, and how they position themselves. Research revealed that referral programs are not very common in our markets and most are positioned as way to “earn” or a “win-win”.

  • We designed a survey to understand and quantify customer motivations to refer others, barriers or problems with referring others, and their use of other (non-Tala) referral systems, within and beyond financial services. We were able to assess the areas for several cohorts.

  • We met with several customers to conduct interviews to understand the context of their life and probe into their experience and mental models around when they refer, who they refer, why they refer, how they refer, and what they say when they refer. We also dug into if they were referred to Tala and what that process was like.

Research

  • Helping others that need a loan

    Someone asked me for a loan, but I don’t want to lend money

    Receiving a bonus

  • Uncomfortable sharing outside my friend group

    Believe my relationship with Tala will be impacted if I refer others who don’t repay

    The acquired got a referral code/link but don't have enough information to know if they can trust Tala yet

    Filtering who to refer because I don’t want to refer those who cannot repay, which could hurt Tala and/or the person I refer

    I may be held financially responsible if I refer someone who doesn’t repay their loan

    Don't have referral card in app

Insights

  • After we reviewed the insights as a team, I led an ideation session to gather all thoughts on how to address the problem statement. We came up with 75 ideas and tested and iterated on 9 of those ideas.

  • We created low fidelity prototypes to address the key issues we uncovered. We tested these prototypes with two focus groups. We then iterated based on the feedback and tested with two more groups.

Customer Co-creation

Problem Statement

I want to tell my close friends in need about Tala, and give them the information they need, without putting myself at risk.

The Solution

Referral Card & Screen Design

We sought to amplify the factors that motivated customers and address the demotivating factors by redesigning the referral card and the referral screen.

Share Message, URL, & Preview

We updated the default copy when a user shares Tala to address users most common questions. We also customized the image preview and text that accompanies the URL.

Code-less Referrals

We found that many customers referred people to Tala, but didn’t know their referral code and those who had a code weren’t certain where to input it. To address this issue we implemented code-less referrals via Firebase.

Challenges

No Credit Changes

Our scope was limited and we could not make any changes to the amount a customer received for a referral, when a customer received their referral, or other ideas like tiered referrals or dual-sided referrals.

Unable to Move the Referral Code Input

The input field for referrals was in the loan application. Due to complexities with the application infrastructure we were unable to move it elsewhere in the flow (time it would take to build).

  • The size and placement of the card lead to low discoverability.

    The copy doesn’t indicate what action happens next.

    The icon communicates email, which is not the primary channel for sharing.

  • The increased size and placement of the referral card makes it easier to find, read, and tap.

    The copy reinforces the two most impactful reasons customers refer: to help others and earn money.

    The CTA lets users know this is the beginning of sharing Tala. This assuages the fear customers had of the app automatically messaging their contacts.

    The graphic illustrates that a conversation will be had.

Referral Card Design

  • Readability is difficult due to contrast and text size.

    Customers have varying levels of familiarity with the copy icon

    Customers were unsure what would happen after they tapped the CTAs

  • The graphic illustrates a conversation between two friends. The male and female genders are represented to give the customers someone they can identify with.

    The headline is more clear with the specific action the customer needs to take and communicates the value.

    The body copy explains the details of how referrals work along with the monetary benefit.

    The primary CTA highlights the most common communication channel in that market and what will happen when they interact with it.

    The secondary CTA pulls up the share sheet with the most used apps that the customer uses to communicate.

    The call out reassures the user that they aren’t responsible for anyone else’s loan.

    Larger text sizes and dark text on a white background increases readability.

Referral Screen Design

Mexico

4x increase in new users who signup via referrals

Impact

Philippines

2x increase in new users who sign up via referrals

Kenya

Slight decrease in new users who sign up via referrals (positively impacted loan portfolio and repayment)

Next Steps

The next steps would be to understand the slight dip in referrals in Kenya. Research showed that many customers referred others in person. The dip in Kenya referrals could possibly be attributed to the increased friction in referring in person (i.e. the code no longer being visible on the referral screen).

To validate this hypotheses an experiment can be run with the existing experience and a new screen where we surface the invite link/code on the referrals page and make it easy for the user to copy the link.