Engaging customers through social cause participation and brand storytelling.
1 Billion Trees by 2030
Ever since TOMS Shoes coined the one-for-one business model back in 2006, it has inspired many companies to follow suit by contributing to a social or environmental cause through the sale of goods.
One of those companies is tentree—a Canadian apparel retailer with a mission to “Plant 1 billion trees by 2030.” by planting 10 of them for every item sold. The trees are planted in areas of the world where they’ll have the highest environmental impact (they’ve planted 42 million so far).
A Complicated Process
tentree has a Tree Code Registration Program that is designed to:
Provide a unique brand experience
Capture the customer’s email
How It Works
Each article of tentree clothing has a unique tag attached to it.
The customer is encouraged to visit the website to register their unique tree code, which is printed on the bronze token.
The Problem
The registration experience was confusing for users and not providing the brand experience that resonated with customers.
Our goal was to increase tree code registrations and reconfigure content to tell a brand story that was aligned with both stakeholder and customer interests.
My Role
I led the prototyping of the registration experience and collaborated with a UX designer—Tess Good—and an account manager—Sarah Parker—for research synthesis and presentation.
We stopped working on the project after delivering our solutions, which were implemented shortly after on their website.
Working Under Constraints
At the outset of the project we had little understanding of tentree’s customers. Furthermore, we had to 1) recommend design solutions that fit into their existing Shopify template, and 2) finish in time to meet their pre-scheduled marketing campaign in 2 months.
Fortunately, tentree had recently completed some research that we could analyze and leverage.
I partnered with Tess Good and Sarah Parker to explore what customers thought about the registration experience and tentree brand—as well as where friction might be occurring.
Insights from 10 internal stakeholder interviews & a survey of 100 customers
1 — Incorrect assumptions
Stakeholders thought customers cared more about “Personal stories about families & local communities working to plant trees.” Turns out, only 8% of survey respondents cared about it (they cared most about the location of trees and their impact on the physical environment.
2 — Missing information
Customers wanted to choose where their trees were planted but just needed more information to do so properly. 83% of respondents said they had trouble thinking about where they’d want their trees planted because they 1) didn’t have enough knowledge to make an informed decision and/or 2) wanted to select more than one country.
3 — Unanswered questions
tentree’s customer support team was consistently receiving inquiries about the tree code registration (eg. some customers lost their code and wondered if their trees would still be planted).
Research Caveats
Clearly defined research goals were not established by tentree prior to execution.
Survey results were not representative of tentree’s full customer base (it skewed towards a more engaged and loyal audience).
There were a couple leading questions in the survey.
Understanding The Landscape
To capture the big picture, we looked at competing apparel brands to contrast them with tentree’s brand story.
A clear trend
More and more apparel companies are taking action to incorporate social responsibility—ethical supply chains, using sustainable fabrics and materials, and offsetting their carbon footprint in various ways.
A few examples:
Patagonia, a 45 year old company that bills itself as an “activist company” that publicly advocates for environmental protection (they sued Donald Trump to protect a national park), is a big player in the space (roughly $1 billion in sales every year). They have a venture capital arm to invest in eco-friendly startups.
Fjallraven’s mission is to “Develop functional, durable and timeless outdoor gear. Act responsibly towards nature, animals and people. Inspire and develop interest in outdoor life.” Their products are considerably more expensive than tentree’s.
Prana is on a mission to “Inspire healthy, active, and free-spirited living.” They focus on using sustainable materials.
More important than ever
With more companies acting to become sustainable, I think customers will increasingly come to expect it by default.
This can be perceived as both a threat and an opportunity for tentree. On the one hand, their emphasis on sustainability won’t differentiate them as much. On the other, tentree can position themselves as a company that leads the conversation on living a more sustainable lifestyle.
A company that consistently looks for opportunities to affect positive environmental change—in ways extending beyond planting trees and sustainable apparel—is a company with an eye for the long term.
Framing The Problem
Stakeholders were not aligned on 1) what their customers wanted from the tree registration experience, and 2) the brand story that resonated with them most.
Customers were dropping out of the registration flow because it lacked useful information for decision making, among other factors (more on this later).
However large or small, we assumed that the majority of tentree’s customers had at least some level of interest in contributing to making the world more sustainable—partially due to the company revolving their entire brand around sustainability, and partially due to sustainability being a significant and growing topic in the world.
The Goal
Cultivate customers’ interest in the tentree brand through a code registration experience that is seamless, educational, and on brand.
Introducing Code Registration 2.0
Through the identification of customer types, a UX audit, information architecture, and prototyping, we reduced the registration process down to three simple steps—down from seven—while educating the user in the process.
How We Did It
Identifying Customer Types
tentree’s research suggested there were five potential customer types that we needed to consider:
Key Takeaway
Our audience has varying levels of skepticism, interest, knowledge of the environment and what tentree claims to do.
As a result, we provided opportunities for users to dive deeper into content—for those with higher engagement—while also ensuring there was a quick way to get through the process as quickly as possible—for those with lower engagement.
UX Audit
To experience what tentree’s customers were going through, we analyzed the existing registration flow to identify pain points:
1 — Where am I?
Information about tree code registration—and the countries that trees are being planted in—were spread across multiple pages. This was confusing and made it easy to miss relevant information.
Furthermore, the primary call-to-action (ie. to register) upon landing on the registration page was easy to miss because the button was blending in with other elements →
2 — Unnecessary repetition of steps
If users had more than one code to register—which many did—they had to go through the entire process each time. There was no way to input more than one code at a time.
3 — Lack of context
There were no details on the implications of choosing one impact (of planting your trees) over another.
4 — Anticlimactic conclusion
Upon completion, the user was shown where their trees would be planted; without an explanation. This was at odds with survey respondents indicating that they cared where their trees were planted.
To keep customers coming back, there was a promising opportunity to leverage the gamification mechanic of a progression bar that leads to discounts/rewards.
Instead, the user was never introduced to the rewards program in the first place and was left with a dashboard that felt incomplete.
Information Architecture
The customer types we identified earlier helped inform both content structure and substance on the landing page:
We reduced the code registration flow to three steps—down from seven:
Positive Results & More To Do
The tentree team was pleased with our design solutions and the reduction in drop-off rates for code registration. They invited us back to conduct more in-depth user research in the near future.
Due to operational and logistical limitations, tentree was unable to implement some of our recommendations (eg. giving users the option to choose where their trees get planted).
Registration drop offs decreased by 50%
Subsequent code registrations increased by 20%
Email inquiries related to registration decreased by 50%
* For confidentiality reasons I have omitted the actual values for these metrics.