Product updates for Vocal writers

Vocal is a storytelling platform that lets writers earn through views, tips and paid subscriptions (Vocal+). I contributed to research and development cycles at Thinkmill, a software consultancy, where we worked with Vocal.

Problem

Evaulating reviews of the paid subscription on Vocal, I discovered that most reviewers found their subscription costs weren’t justified because of the low readership.

In focus group discussion, we learnt how the reading experience was lacking and discovered how Vocal could better support writers with content monetisation, merchandise sales or community building ideas.

Solution

We prioritized product improvements targeting a broad need for profile personalisation, showcasing work and feedback from readers:

• Enhanced Writer Profiles

  • Personalisation: Pinned stories and customisations

  • Earned kudos signals: Awards prominently displayed above the fold

  • Content discoverability: Find written pieces by genre or chronology

• Comments & Feedback

  • Guided rating form to provide constructive feedback

  • Readers can directly engage with writers' work with comments

Impact

Comments became the platform's most-adopted feature. While I don’t have any hard numbers, I would track customer churn and gross revenue churn on a monthly cycle today.

These product updates add value to existing customers, targetting retention. Customer churn would show me how many general users are staying on the platform and gross revenue churn would isolate revenue leak to lost cancellations.