Product led growth · Customer journey mapping · Service design

Frictionless PLGthe customer journey from cold call to self-serve

We replaced a two-day cold-call purchase process with a 9-minute self-serve session. Self-install hardware reached active use faster than professional installation. A new help centre and answer bot cut install and setup support calls by 30%.

DÓNAL O'MAHONY · DIRECTOR OF UX, THEN SENIOR DIRECTOR OF UX DESIGN, CONTENT & USER RESEARCH, VERIZON CONNECT · THIS INITIATIVE 2018 TO 2020

Context

I joined Verizon Connect/Fleetmatics as Senior Director, leading UX Design, Content and User Research. During my time there, it became an easy-to-use, modern AI and IoT company.

This case study covers one initiative I led to rebuild the full small-business journey: try, buy, install, use and support.

Goals

Give a small business the option to go from first hearing about the product to actively using it without a phone call at any step.
Get self-install hardware to active use weeks faster and cheaper than professional install scheduling.
Cut the support load created by install and setup confusion, rather than just staffing around it.

Outcome, measured

Time to buy: 9 minsvs2 dayson the cold-call path
Time to active use: ~1 weekvs~6 weeksfor professional install
Support calls: 30%fewer support calls on the top install-and-setup questions

Six stages02

The customer's journey

Buying, installing, and getting help with a fleet-tracking product meant a phone call at almost every step: a sales call to buy, a professional installer to fit the hardware, a support call when something did not work.

This suited large enterprise fleets that wanted a managed service. It created friction for a small business that wanted to track seven vans and return to work.

One map, not six backlogs

Every step assumed a phone call. That was the product.

We mapped the complete journey: aware, try, buy, install, how to use it and support. We then rebuilt each stage as part of one service rather than treating onboarding and support as separate backlog items.

Service blueprint for the small business journey across aware, try, buy, install, how to use it and support, with customer actions, front of stage, back of stage and support processes — The service blueprint the initiative worked from: one map across all six stages, with customer actions, front of stage, back of stage and support processes on a single sheet.

Six stages, rebuilt

Aware and try

Awareness had always come from a cold call: the only way to find out more was to talk to a rep. We put an online demo and free trial in front of that, so a prospect could evaluate the product without waiting for a callback. The effect on purchase time was immediate: a median of 9 minutes online, against roughly two days for the traditional cold-call-to-contract path. Two-thirds of customers who tried the online path bought in that first session.

This was a deliberate Product Led Growth (PLG) motion. I built the measurement discipline into the team, tracking drop-off at every entry point from landing page to first trial session, and used it to keep improving the handover from marketing site to product. Trial users reached their first meaningful fleet insight before speaking to sales, and the self-serve channel became the default acquisition path for small businesses.

Laptop and phone showing the Reveal Now online demo and free trial experience, with a guided tour overlay on a live map — Product-led growth motion on the marketing site: prospects could see a demo and try the product themselves before buying.

9 mins

median time to buy, online

~2 days

time to buy, cold call to contract

2 in 3

online customers bought in session one

Buy and install

We paired e-commerce checkout with Reveal Starter, a self-install hardware option. The existing professional-install product remained available. Within the first year, every order under seven units moved to the e-commerce channel by default rather than a sales call.

Reveal Now checkout flow with a five-step progress bar, vehicle count, email capture and an order summary panel — The checkout flow itself: five steps, a vehicle count, and a running order summary.

How to use it

A guided in-product tour replaced the human-led setup process. It introduced the live map, vehicle status and the meaning of an idling alert. Motion design and content helped customers reach first value without a call. From contract to first real use, the self-install path took about a week. Professional installation took roughly a month and a half. This changed the default install option we recommended for smaller fleets.

Welcome to Reveal Now guided tour shown on laptop and phone, offering a guided tour or a look around — Welcome to Reveal Now, on web and mobile: take the guided tour, or find your own way around.

Four guided tour steps: This is Live Map, Vehicle status, Idling vehicle, and a customer testimonial card — The four tour steps as one sequence: Live Map, vehicle status, an idling vehicle and what it costs, then a customer's own words.

Our fuel savings increased by over 10% in month two, we were expecting to see cost savings, we weren't expecting to see that much that quickly.
Doug Kraus, Director of Operations, Zayo

Line chart of time to active use in days, showing Reveal at roughly 45 to 55 days and Reveal Starter at roughly 7 to 10 days across three months — Time to active use, contract to first real use: Reveal Starter self-install against Reveal professional install.

Support

I introduced Zendesk Help Center and Answer Bot as part of the self-serve experience. We also used Pendo guides to provide contextual help when customers needed it. Together, these changes cut support calls on the top install-and-setup FAQs by 30%.

One connected map sat beneath all six stages: aware, try, buy, install, how to use it and support. Internally, we called this "easy to". Teams worked from this shared service map rather than separate roadmaps. This allowed e-commerce, onboarding, voice-of-customer and content design to develop together while we fixed the handovers between them. Research supported the work throughout. Each year, the experience team ran thousands of surveys and remote tests, alongside hundreds of interviews and field studies. We could therefore measure stages such as "how to use it" with evidence rather than instinct.

Experience team annual customer contact

150

lab tests

100

customer field studies

900

customer interviews

1,500+

prototypes

4,000+

remote user testing

14,000+

surveys

The team

I led this experience design & vision across the multiple teams & functions, including.

Pat Ashe: Design Manager & Content Strategy, Help Center
Billy Fitzgerald: Design Lead
John Wood: Design Manager
Andrew Pringle: User Researcher
Squad designers: Executed improvements in their own areas across every stage of the journey.
Cross-functional leadership: Engineering, support and marketing partnership, so the journey held together end to end rather than breaking at the handoffs between teams.