Hiya Connect

Translating design strategy
into a Successful B2B SaaS product

The Problem

Hiya Connect – now “Hiya Branded Call” – is a product for small businesses and enterprises that allows them to display custom branding on their customers’ devices when they call – reducing spam labels and getting their customers to pick up instead of sending it to voicemail.

My job was to turn a promising proof-of-concept into a true B2B SaaS product and become a primary revenue driver for the company.

My role

Initially, I was the primary product designer, responsible for:

• Design strategy

• Hands-on design

• UX writing

• Design system creation

• Research

As the product grew and I expanded the team, I handed the design and research work over to others on my team and shifted to:

• Continued design strategy

• Design management

• Planning and resourcing

• Occasional hands-on design work to accelerate output

My team

• 2 product designers

• 1 product researcher

• A variety of PMs and engineers

project highlights

Product strategy via design

From my first day at Hiya, my goal was to turn a bolted-together set of features into a self-serve B2B SaaS product.

This would involve shifting users from a white-glove customer service experience to self-sufficient interactions. It would also require moving from a strictly sales-led purchase process to a purchase decision that new users could evaluate and make on their own without scheduling demos or sales calls.

Over time, I guided the product team toward building features and tools that gave customers that autonomy and reduced the effort required by sales and customer service teams.

Good product design generates revenue

Incrementally moving toward self-service and focusing on experiences that deliver value to customers led to our call branding product being the best in the industry. In a survey of our customers, “ease of use” was the most common purchasing factor at a whopping 79%.

outcomes

Driving recurring revenue for the business

Hiya Connect steadily grew to become a reliable and primary source of recurring revenue for Hiya. And with the addition of the self-serve purchase flow, revenue has been further supercharged. 🚀

Growing From a Product to Platform

From a bare-bones one-feature product, the team grew Hiya Connect to include dashboards, user management, and a variety of reporting features.

With the addition of new products, Hiya Connect shifted to a platform and its flagship service was rebranded as “Branded Call.”

Throughout this growth, I guided the researcher and designers on my team as they created experiences that delivered value to our customers and increased revenue to the business.

Wow-worthy self-serve metrics

When the self-serve purchase flow was implemented, the business impact was dazzling:

• A massive influx of new users per month sign up for the free Hiya Registration product, creating an avenue to build relationships and offer paid products

• A 400% increase in new paid subscriptions each month, compared to our sales-led approach

• Massive ongoing growth for our North Star Metric, branded calls per month by our customers