Referral - Urban Company

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Referral - Urban Company

This is the referral program project done

Fundamentals of Product selected: Urban Company

Core value proposition

For a busy urban individual who needs reliable home services at their doorstep, Urban Company is a technology platform that provides high quality, standardized service experience at a time and place of their choosing.

Key elements of CVP	Urban Company	Major Competitor (Unorganized)
High quality, standardized	Rigorous training Strict continuous consequence management Guarantees In-house products	Hit or miss Typically just a "task" with minimal accountability Opaqueness and high charge
Chosen time and place	App based slotting	Difficult to get to service agent Difficult to ensure timely service as planned

Key elements of CVP

Urban Company

Major Competitor (Unorganized)

High quality, standardized

Rigorous training

Strict continuous consequence management

Guarantees

In-house products

Hit or miss

Typically just a "task" with minimal accountability

Opaqueness and high charge

Chosen time and place

App based slotting

Difficult to get to service agent

Difficult to ensure timely service as planned

Ideal customer profiles

Parameter	Time crunched urban bachelor	Value conscious urban family person
Age	22-35 years	25-40 years
Location	Urban, semi urban	Urban, semi urban
Apps	Facebook, WhatsApp, Swiggy, Blinkit, PhonePe, YouTube	Facebook, WhatsApp, Swiggy, Blinkit, PhonePe, YouTube
Most value	Convenience	Quality
Key features	Instant booking	Service guarantees, professional service providers
Adoption curve	Early adopter, early majority	Late majority
Frequency	High (3+ times a month)	On need basis
Appetite to pay	Medium	Value seekers
TAM	Large	Very large
Distribution potential	High	High

Questionnaire

Overall research goals

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Research goals principle: 3-4 simple and specific research goals.

What challenges do users face when seeking home services?
Where and how do users first encounter Urban Company?
What are the key moments of satisfaction?
What are the key moments of dissatisfaction?

Questionnaire

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Questionnaire principles:

4-5 specific top questions. Not a mechanical script to run through.

Use shadowing judiciously to go in-depth.

Focus on how users have behaved in the past.

Above questions mapped to research objectives for specific user types

Questionnaire - Universal users

Objective	Questions
What challenges do users face when seeking home services?	In the last 6 months or so, what are the home services that you have had to get done? How have you found the service providers for those home services? What verification do you do before hiring the service provider? What are the top challenges you have faced with the service providers?

Questionnaire - Direct users

Objective	Questions
Where and how do users first encounter Urban Company?	How did you first come across Urban Company?
What challenges do users face when seeking home services?	What made you start using Urban Company?
What are the key moments of satisfaction and dissatisfaction?	What Urban Company services do you use? Describe the most recent interaction with Urban Company. What are the highlights and the lowlights? How can Urban Company make your experience better?

Questionnaire - Churned users

Objective	Questions
What are the key moments of dissatisfaction?	Describe what made you stop using Urban Company. What were the series of actions you took before finally deciding to stop using Urban company? Compare Urban Company to the service provider you are currently using. What would need to change for you to start using Urban Company again?

Acquisition - Referral

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Goal: Increase referral acquisition from negligible to 4,000 per month.

This would result in addition of 30,000 new users by end of M12.

Corresponding incremental annual revenue would be Rs 14 crore

Growth model

revenue = active users X transactions per user X average order value

active users = new users + retained users + churned users

new users = organic + paid

organic = referral + inbound

Why referral

Urban company enjoys very high retention rate of 70%+ (Source: founder mentions).

Urban company ranks highly in the organic channel (SEO etc.).

Urban company has very high customer satisfaction (4.7 stars).

Existing referral program has very low awareness.

Existing referral experience is very basic.

What is the brag worthy value of the product?

Service agent comes to the doorstep at selected place and time.
Quality of service is consistent.
Quality of service is high.

What will be the platform currency?

UC Cash (already existing currency).
Dopamine - Helping the friend / relative find a solution to their problem.

Who to ask for a referral?

Customers who have high NPS.
Customers who have low complaints.
Customers who have rated the service highly more than 3 times.
Customers who have availed the seasonal service.

Happy flows

Aha moments: Warranty, high rating, high count, place and time select, payment after service.

How will the customer discover and share the referral program?

Existing Setup

Referral CTA is at the bottom of the screen and partially visible.
WhatsApp message does not mention quality, time and space selection value propositions.

Account page evolution

WhatsApp message evolution

Contextual nudges

Customers who have high NPS.
Customers who have low complaints.
Customers who have rated the service highly more than 3 times.
Customers who have availed the seasonal service and rated highly.

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Nudge will change based on seasonality.

During Diwali, house cleaning.

During summer, ac repair. etc.

What will the referral communication say?

Predominantly, prospects will get a WhatsApp message.

How will the referees track their referrals?

How will the referral look to a non-user?

How will you encourage referee to continue tracking?

Progressive rewards to incentivize movement towards next milestone. Clear funnel visibility with a CTA.

Nudges on Urban Company app and WhatsApp without spamming

Nuances

Specific services are used most often. Use those as triggers. E.g. bathroom cleaning, hair cut.
Some services are season specific. Use those as triggers only in the appropriate dates. E.g. house cleaning before festivals, ac servicing during summer.
Target customers who have 3+ high rated services.
Do not interrupt booking flow. Nudge later while they are waiting for service or after they have high rated the service.

Experiment design

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Hypothesis: If there is an option for customers to earn meaningful rewards by referring, then the acquisition through referral will increase by X%.

Success Metrics	Guardrails
North star: Acquisitions	LTV / CAC ICP Retention of acquired customers Churn of existing customers Absolute burn amount
Leading metrics: Sender: Views of refer page Sender: Clicks refer button Receiver: Message view Receiver: App install Success metrics: Acquisition of new customers TPC of existing customers

Success Metrics

Guardrails

North star: Acquisitions

LTV / CAC

ICP

Retention of acquired customers

Churn of existing customers

Absolute burn amount

Leading metrics:

Sender: Views of refer page

Sender: Clicks refer button

Receiver: Message view

Receiver: App install

Success metrics:

Acquisition of new customers

TPC of existing customers

Launch Plan

	Release 1	Release 2
Timeline	0.5 months	Additional 1 month
Features	Referral triggers / nudges. Account page evolution	Referral pages
Benefits	Contextual, prominent CTAs	Engagement with customer for continued referrals
Success metrics	Acquisition of new customers TPC of existing customers	Incremental Acquisition of new customers Incremental TPC of existing customers
Leading metrics	Sender: Views of refer page Sender: Clicks refer button Receiver: Message view Receiver: App install	Views of referral page Views of referral status funnel Views of details of a funnel step
Guardrails	LTV / CAC ICP Retention of acquired customers Churn of existing customers Absolute burn amount	LTV / CAC ICP Retention of acquired customers Churn of existing customers Absolute burn amount
Campaign	For the account page evolution, In-app nudges the first time the customer uses the updated app. For the nudges, Contextual in-app nudges, WhatsApp nudges when Customer has high NPS. Customer has experienced 3+ high rated services. Customer has just rated a service high. The service is in-season.	In-app nudges the first time the customer uses the updated app. Again 1 week later for customers who have not experienced the referral flow. Nudges whenever customer is close to a milestone, to push towards next milestone.

Growth Model - Impact

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Target achieved.

34,450 new users acquired in 12 months.

Rs 14.1 cr. incremental revenue added annually.

Foundational figures

Sources

Parameter	Value	Source
Annual transacting users	5,300,000	Source 1
% business from repeat users	77%	Source 1
Annual new users	1,219,000	Calculated
AOV	1290	Source 2
Monthly orders	2,200,000	Source 2
Annual Revenue	21,760,000,000	Source 1
ARPU - Annual	4,106	Calculated
ARPU - Monthly	342	Calculated
TPC - Monthly	0.27	Calculated
TPC - annual	3.2	Calculated

Referral funnel

Funnel item	Users - Monthly	Notes
Annual transacting users	441,667	From UC FY23 business summary
WhatsApp referral messages	44,167	Assumption of 10%, industry standards
# of message reads	22,083	Assumption of 50% due to high intent
app installs	8,833	Assumption of 40% due to high intent
# of paying users	4,417	Assumption of 50% due to high intent