sofasoda mentorship launched as the first online ed tech mentoring platform in June 2020. We provided four topics that help people who are facing confusion in their career, thinking about pivoting career paths and having difficulty getting good results in interviews to find mentors. After a few months of operation, we found out mentees would try to reach out to mentors on Linkedin or Facebook and ask them questions. We were the bottleneck of the communication between mentor and mentee. Therefore, we decided to create a private message channel for our mentees and mentors.
Create a good communication channel for mentors and mentees to build relationships and developed a sense of understanding for successful consulting sessions.
Worked closely with product manager and researcher in the early stage. Responsible for clarifying user needs, conducting usability testing and design. Discussed the practicality and solutions with engineers.
As paid consulting services, how to get an appropriate level to meet the needs of mentees without causing more burden on the mentors at the same time?
Since the private message feature launched, there's 37% of chatrooms were created before purchase and 72.2% of them make the final purchase.
Before the design started, it was really important to understand the “why” and “how” of the communication between mentors and mentees. I started with the 5W1H method, What do mentees and mentors expect from the other person? What kind of questions do they have for each other? How much back and forth there will be? What kind of circumstances will they start the conversation? Do we need to provide a canned message to help start the conversation? Does the conversation need any restrictions?
We conducted the following methodologies in two weeks to find out the answers. We divided the consulting process into four stages and sorted the motivation and purposes into each stage accordingly.
Collecting past experiences and the impression of mentorship
Studying similar feature from other products
Using WhatsApp for the actual consulting session
Understanding past experiences and insights deeply
Before purchasing, mentees want to confirm whether their questions are within the scope and the mentor is prepared to answer.
Before purchasing, mentees could not find a suitable time on the available time and wanted to ask the mentor to open a new time.
After the appointment is confirmed, mentees would like to double check with the mentor to see whether the booking is confirmed successfully.
After the appointment is confirmed, mentees would like to add more info, and the mentor could clarify the unclear part on the pre-questionnaire.
Before and during the session, both mentees and mentors needed to inform each other if there were any emergency or software problems.
After the session is finished, mentors would like to share extra materials, while mentees would like to update progress and interview results.
After research, three major values and purposes of this project were finally obtained. Therefore, I started to design the flow and list out small functions that needed to be supported and ensure the first version could meet the common needs.
Help mentees connect suitable mentors and speed up the decision-making process
Help both sides to clarify unclear parts in the pre-session questionnaire
Resolve contingency, exchange resources, learn from each other
Consider the timing when mentees need to send messages are mostly during the decision-making before purchasing, so the contact mentor button is placed near the “purchase” button for the consultation session and fixed at the bottom on Tablet and Mobile devices.
To solve the pain points mentioned above and prevent abusive behavior. For unpaid users, they are required to fill out the survey before sending messages. In addition to listing the frequently asked questions, I also provided kind reminders, which stated if mentees ask non-related questions, mentors have the right not to answer to the message. This has reduced the chances of false expectations of mentees and the extra burden on mentors.
Placing the latest session information on the first level on the right side of the chatroom for mentees and mentors. Whichever booking stage they are at, mentors can complete tasks at different stages swiftly.
/First 3 Months
Private message went live on 2020/11/24.
As a result, private message has successfully solved the pain points of the users. In the first 3 months, 40.7% of mentorship paid users used this feature to contact mentors. Since private message went live, 37% of the chats were initiated by mentee before purchase, and 72.2% of the them complete their purchase.
