Transforming An Onboarding Experience
At LeafLink, a Series C B2B Wholesale Marketplace, I transformed a fragmented, high-touch onboarding flow into a fully self-serve experience for the Payments platform. Through a service design lens we consolidated emails, calls, and third-party tools into a streamlined, in-platform flow completed in under five minutes. We reduced operational overhead while accelerating user activation.
Client
LeafLink
Time
8 months
Tags
Impact
17%
Increase in signup conversions
~3 minutes
Average sign up time
1,000’s
Internal employee hours saved per month
My Role
This project was a strong example of cross-discipline collaboration. Alongside the core product team of myself, a Product Manager, and Front- and Back-End Engineers, I partnered with the Servicing team and Account Executives who managed the current onboarding experience. I treated these internal teams as their own user group during discovery, which helped uncover key opportunities to improve the process. There was also close back-and-forth with engineering to determine feasibility around connecting bank accounts, verifying licenses, and later, creating the first in-app walkthrough using Appcues.
Problem
The manual onboarding flow for Payments created friction for both users and internal teams. Buyers and sellers filled out an intake form that went to an Account Executive, triggering a lengthy process of offline credit checks and multiple follow-ups over email and phone. Onboarding often stretched two to three weeks, slowing down activation.
Even after joining, many users struggled to navigate the platform. They lacked clear guidance on features, were often unaware of available payment programs, and leaned heavily on support teams for help. This led to high volumes of requests that drained resources and revealed the process was not scalable.
The original point of entry on the left had little context to the onboarding experience whereas the new design on the right made users aware of what they needed to successfully onboard.
Solution
We validated the new flow with 20 users before launch and saw a 100% completion rate along with strong satisfaction scores. After working through technical constraints and feasibility, we reduced onboarding time from several weeks to under five minutes through the following enhancements:
Streamlined Digital Flow
Automated credit checks, license verification, and approvals, which removed the need for Account Executive intervention.
Improved Formed Design
Broke the onboarding into five clear steps such as business information, licenses, and estimated sales. This reduced drop-off by preventing form fatigue and setting expectations up front.
Feature Discovery
Launched guided walkthroughs with Appcues, then iterated to a more reliable in-app tour based on performance. We also created a Knowledge Center informed by the most common questions from Servicing and Account Executives.
The intro screen informed users of the information they needed to have on hand. This was a fun page to create, and we introduced four new styles and components to our design system as a result.
v1 of the Knowledge Center
Introduced an onboarding To Do List if users did not complete some basic first steps in setting up their profile on the platform.
If users were already on the Marketplace, we could pull their information automatically. If not, the form provided open inputs for each section.
Learnings + Next Steps
Overloading users with too many onboarding elements (like progress bars, checklists, and walkthroughs) created friction rather than clarity. The most effective features were lightweight, contextual, and directly tied to user actions. [Learnings]
Internal teams benefited from onboarding design just as much as external users. Clearer flows and self-service guidance reduced the strain on Account Executives and Servicing teams. [Learnings]
Continue refining onboarding by testing which guidance methods (tooltips, hotspots, or walkthroughs) are most effective at improving activation and retention. [Next steps]
Expand the Knowledge Center into a dynamic help hub that surfaces content contextually within the product, reducing reliance on static tours and further lowering support requests. [Next steps]