Improving subscription conversions and management
Lead Product Designer • Admin & Consumer Experience at
Transformed one of the most frustrating customer experiences into a streamlined subscription flow that contributed $250k+ in additional monthly recurring revenue.
Team
2 PM, 6 devs
Timeline
2 months
55%
Faster onboarding time (now <1 min)
2.2x
Improved funnel conversion
3%
Increase in MRR ($250k+)
Challenge
Metropolis's parking subscription experience was broken for both sides of the product.
Customers
Product: Customer webapp
~60% drop-off
Broken purchase flow, unusable search, and a confusing map interface that frustrated users at every step.
Admins
Product: Operations Manager
~4 hours per week
Time spent manually onboarding and managing subscribers across disconnected tools.
This led to lost revenue, frustrated users, and recurring support overhead that was draining resources.
The Goal
Make subscription management efficient for admins and create a frictionless purchase experience for customers to improve conversion.
Discovery and Insights
Discovery Workshops
Collaborative sessions with Ops and Launch teams to understand pain points.
Data Analysis
Heap and Hex data analysis to uncover user drop-off points and behavior patterns.
Community Research
Async research on Slack to hear directly from on-field Operators and Launch managers.
Key Insight
Initially, we had assumed that creating subscription plans and communication were the most difficult parts, but research showed that the real pain was in managing and onboarding customers. This flipped our approach and focused us on where users struggled most.
Solution
Part 1
Fixing the purchase experience customers were abandoning
We knew from customer reports, Heap screen recordings and discovery workshops that the "browse and find a subscription plan" was a very cumbersome process for our customers.
User Journey - Before
Design direction
After exploring several options for improving the search and browsing experience, we decided to build deep-linked shareable plan links that skip the search/browse map experience entirely, taking customers straight to their specific subscription plan and checkout page.
This decision significantly reduced friction, leading to a 55% reduction in purchasing time.
Improve the navigation and search experience
Pro: Improves core part of the Consumer experience.
Con: Substantial work required, doesn’t speed up user flow.
After onboarding, surface the Subscription invite
Pro: Allows faster discovery and works well for existing customers.
Con: Breaks up flow, sustains and takes up limited real-estate on phone.
Add subscription plan links directly into onboarding emails
Pro: Substantially reduces user effort.
Con: Can be an issue if sign-up info and admin contact info don’t match.
User Journey - After
Deep linking a customer to their specific subscription
Iterations
Bringing all the relevant information on a single page was a difficult task
Partnering with Gemini, I considered and balanced information about subscription access, parking hours, plan details, cost summary, support information, legal copy, etc. while ensuring users could act quickly.
Beyond the PRD: Exploring subscription lifecycle
After solving the core issues, I led an exploration of adjacent experiences. I used Figma Make to prototype improvements to the subscription life cycle — including plan changes, cancellations, payment method issues, and multi-subscription management.
I partnered with my PM for prioritization, and together we scoped the most critical flows, broke the project out to 3 separate phases, and deferred some improvements to later iterations. These explorations have influenced roadmaps of two others teams.
Viewing and cancelling subscription plans
Browsing plans available at a location
Part 2
Creating a subscription management experience for Admins
Admins previously could only manage “Whitelists” - a way to make private plans accessible to select customers, eg, parking on the first floor to select residents. There was no way to manage subscription plans and active members, and it required substantial manual effort across a patchwork of tools.
Admins struggled with critical problems
Lack of visibility
Lack of control
Launching at a large location is too complex
Design direction
Enable Admins to find, manage, and engage with subscribers.
Pro: Provides high visibility and actionability to admins for each subscriber.
Con: Technically more challenging.
Bulk create subscriptions and associated customer information in a single flow
Pro: Solves for bulk creation and complex use-cases.
Con: Did not address the core and visibility management issue.
This dashboard reduced admin time by 87% (4 hrs → 30 mins per week).
Now, admins can find and act on each subscription plan and subscriber swiftly
Biggest contribution: I built a vocabulary for subscription lifecycle statuses that aligned product, engg, and admins
Added reusable desktop patterns to library, evolving a new design system
And worked with missing data and pushbacks due to back-end setup, among other constraints.
Reflections and outcomes
What worked
Discovery process helped us focus on the right problems (management over creation)
Async testing caught edge cases (allowlisting, multiple subs) before launch
Close collaboration with Customer Ops + UX writing boosted adoption
What I would do differently
Leverage AI tools to lend FE a hand, specially with QA fixes and improvements.
Involve content partners early to avoid late churn.
Broader Impact
This project transformed one of the product's weakest aspects into a valuable and user-friendly experience, advancing key OKRs for multiple teams, earning leadership recognition, and smoothly scaling across 1000+ locations.
Funnel conversion
Onboarding Time
Admin Time Saved
Revenue
+120% (Dropoff: 60% → 13%)
−55% (now <1 min)
-3 hours weekly (75% faster)
+$250K (+3%) MRR
Curious to learn more?
Happy to share the behind-the-scenes of this project. I’m currently exploring new roles, so if you’re hiring, let’s chat!
Email • LinkedIn • Resume • Selected work
