Onboarding in 7 Days: Boosting Amazon Music’s Retention
This is an Amazon Music Design Challenge collaboration with Pratt Institute. Amazon Music is seeking a Customer Experience (CX) strategy to improve retention across its tiered offerings, to keep the users active from month to month.
Info
- Timeline: Feb 2025 - Mar 2025
- Team Echo: Iris, Jessica, Roshni, Merlyn
- My Role: User interview, Survey design, Hi-fi prototyping
Amazon Music has Some Problems with Its Retention Rate
Amazon Music is third in the music streaming market. However, looking into the subscription data, most of the users are free-tier users, and lots of the users drop the app after the first month.
So our research question naturally appears:
“How might our design persuade more free users to convert to prime or unlimited users, and keep the retention rate at the same time?”
Conducting User Research on Music Enthusiasts
We were curious about what the music streaming users are thinking about, so we know why they stay away from Amazon Music anymore.
We designed a screening survey to ask about people’s listening behaviors and got 104 responses, from which we picked 10 people who are music enthusiasts and also Amazon Music users, now or previously, to do a deep user interview on their music subscription, things they like and dislike about Amazon Music, and their opinion on the other major music streaming platforms.
Key Insights We Found
Many Prime users don’t know they have free access to Amazon Music - "I had no idea I even had these Prime Music benefits—it's not really something I ever noticed."
It’s difficult for users to switch from one music streaming platform to another - “I love trying out new apps in general, but the only thing stopping me from migrating to other music apps is the inability to migrate my playlists that have been curated over the years!”
Users appreciate good and smart music recommendations - “A new tool enables recommendations on specific vibes, maybe like a ChatGPT for music?”
What the users value the most is “abundant music resources, good music quality, and no ads.
A trade-off on Product Direction
We planned to create some very playful, gamified features to address the problem before revealing the user research results, something social heavy and eye-catching (making new friends, listening synchronously, music testing, etc), or something that leverages Amazon’s ecosystem, connecting Alexa and Echo.
Unfortunately, none of our user interviews matched the initial direction, and the current Amazon PM had a practical product focus and did not want to focus on the social features, so instead, we focused on what the real users care about: subscription and playlists.
That’s how our 7-day onboarding strategy came out. The first 7 days are the most important period to engage the users. The retention data, declining from 100% to 89.94% in the first month, provides solid proof.
Hi-Fi Prototypes of the 7-day Onboarding Strategy
🎉 DAY 1 Onboarding Flow & Welcome Email Ensure users recognize the benefits, actively explore unique features, and remain engaged throughout their experience.
🔄DAY 2/3 Import Playlist Guidance Pop-UpImport Playlist Banner Reminder & Email Marketing on Amazon Music Membership
⏰ DAY 4/5 Import Playlist Banner Reminder & Email Marketing on Amazon Music Membership Ensure users understand the value of Amazon Music Prime
📊 DAY 7 Personalized Music Report Banner & Introducing Maestro AI Bot
Reflection
What we did well
- Developed the design based on the user research
- Value the feasibility and business impact of the feature
What we could do better
- A more detailed visual mockup
- More time to conduct user research on Amazon Music user
Ensure users understand the value of Amazon Music Prime