How I improved ‘profile completion’ at BharatMatrimony by driving on the user’s need for acceptance.

Overview: This UX project focuses on optimizing the profile completion process on BharatMatrimony, an online matchmaking platform catering to the Indian community. The goal is to encourage users to provide comprehensive and accurate information, thereby improving match accuracy, user engagement, and overall satisfaction.

(This project was done a few years back, while I was working at BharatMatrimony)

Problem Statement:

How might we motivate users who had invested considerable time filling in basic profile details and preferences to go the extra mile and input additional information like hobbies, interests, vision, thoughts about life, parenthood, etc..

(This additional information is crucial for potential partners seeking a deeper connection.)

Understanding the impact of the problem: Online matchmaking apps generally have a 70/30 gender ratio edging towards males. That means a majority of male users on the platform have to really hope for acceptance from the few females who get a lot of options to choose from. This makes acceptance a bigger problem to be solved for men looking for a partner on the platform.

Interestingly, users in matchmaking platforms are very protective of having their personal information on a public space — but at the same time demanding of seeing more information of others.

User Persona:

At BharatMatrimony, user personas are primarily determined by two attributes: who created the profile and the user’s gender. This leads to four distinct personas, each with unique goals, challenges, and emotions:

1. Parents seeking a match for their daughter.
2. Parents seeking a match for their son.
3. Female user searching for herself.
4. Male user searching for himself.

Improving the profile completion process for one persona significantly impacts the overall experience for the corresponding persona. Thus, any solution must consider the dual impact on both user types.

This means if we allow a user to skip completing their profile it will compromise the experience of the opposite user viewing their profile. A comprehensive and detailed male profile not only benefits the male user but also improves the interaction and engagement of female users on the platform. Hence when solving problems at BharatMatrimony it becomes very important to look at how any solution impacts both the users simultaneously.

Previous approaches:

Profile completion has been an ongoing concern at BharatMatrimony, as the platform’s core relies on well-rounded profiles. Over a period I explored various methods to enhance completion, by using gamification elements, user-focused messaging, etc.

• Gamification Elements: Introduced progress bars, badges, and rewards to incentivize users. These elements aimed to provide a sense of accomplishment and motivate users.
• User-Focused Messaging: Developed user-centered messaging that emphasizes the benefits of a complete profile, such as improved match accuracy and increased visibility to potential partners.

Profile completion widgets that were placed at various levels on the homepage

These Profile completion widgets were strategically placed on the homepage, yielding results, but not transformational ones. This led me to seek further improvements.

To address this challenge, I revisited the user journey, seeking opportunities to strategically insert a promotion that would drive more engagement.

User Journey:

The user journey encompasses various stages, from how users create a profile, discover profiles, initiate & respond to make meaningful connections. Here’s an overview of the user journey on BharatMatrimony:

1. Create Profile & Preference: Users complete their profiles, adding detailed information about themselves, their family, education, career, interests, and expectations from a partner.
2. Find Matches: Users start browsing profiles based on criteria like age, religion, education, location, and more using advanced search filters to narrow down profiles that match their preferences.
3. Send Interest: Users express interest in profiles they find appealing.
4. Wait for response: Users wait, sometimes losing patience for the other user to respond.
5. Respond to interests: Users and their families agree on compatibility and proceed to initiate conversations with the intention of taking the relationship forward.

Ideation & Problem solving:

The challenge was to identify areas/gaps in the user journey where a user would be highly motivated to provide information about themselves. Within the user journey, I identified a dull period where users would wait impatiently for an acceptance from the other after they send an interest. I ideated to explore how I could take advantage of this user need and convert that into my solution.

Design to me is the perspective at which I look at a problem. I believe some of the best designs take advantage of the problem, making them the solution

Most of the problems at BharatMatrimony revolve around the theme of acceptance. This is an intangible need that all of us as humans are wired to have. A decision that leads to marriage also begins when 2 people accept each other.

Solution: After a lot of brainstorming and evaluating multiple other ideas, I decided to introduce a promotion asking people to input their personal information in this context where they are waiting for an acceptance.

The idea involved framing the promotion as a transformative journey towards a meaningful connection and aligning it with users’ aspirations, motivating them to share their personal details willingly. The promise of forming a genuine connection and the excitement of receiving acceptance provide powerful incentives for users to participate and invest in the process.

Designed for Conversion:

Customization was key to success. Depending on the profile’s creator and recipient, the message was tailored. The following three parameters were crucial to the success of this experience

1. Choosing the right trigger: To ensure maximum conversion from the promotion, I had to ensure that data was requested only at stages in the user journey where their eagerness to connect to a profile was identified to be stronger. After identifying that interests sent from the Profile Display Page (PDP) had higher intent than the ones sent from any listing page, (Users visit a PDP 5–7 times before they sent an interest) the promotion was decided to be triggered only from the PDP once per user session.
2. Asking the right questions: To make the promotion more motivational we reminded the user of the opposite persona to whom they sent an interest. Based on the persona to whom the interest was sent, their different needs when looking at profiles were highlighted to the user. (For example, a parent creating a profile for their daughter would be more interested to know the stability of the groom’s job and life choices. whereas the girl who created a profile by herself would be more inclined to know about the groom’s vision towards life, equality, hobbies, interests, etc.) Hence the CTA for the promotion was crafted to call out only the data we needed the users to add.
3. Limiting the type and number of questions: Since bombarding the user with too many questions would have led to an eventual drop-off, the number of questions asked to a user was limited to not more than 5. Also, to make data entry feel like a breeze we choose only those questions where the user had to select the answer from options and not upload or type text.

Watch Prototype

Performance Monitoring:

Performance monitoring revealed that the redesigned profile completion process yielded remarkable results, with completion rates soaring to around 35–40%. Furthermore, the turnaround time to respond to such interests was also reduced to 24 hours.

Conclusion: By implementing a user-centric approach I was able to successfully enhance profile completion rates. The redesigned process not only improved match accuracy and user engagement but also fostered a positive user experience. The continuous monitoring of performance metrics and user feedback ensures that the platform remains effective and aligned with user needs, ultimately contributing to more successful matches and satisfied users on BharatMatrimony.