Case Study
Spot / AWS Onboarding
Spot (formerly Spot.io) helps enterprise customers optimize their cloud spend across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. But before they could benefit from these services, new customers had to navigate a complex and highly technical on-boarding process, especially for AWS integrations.
The Problem
The original on-boarding experience was fragmented and intimidating:
Required customers to manually switch between multiple browser tabs
Relied on copying/pasting sensitive account data like role ARNs
Assumed a high degree of technical cloud knowledge, including command line interface knowledge.
This complexity caused friction, drop-off, and confusion especially for less technical stakeholders evaluating Spot during trials or POCs.
Understanding the problems
During discovery, my team ran user interviews with current, and non-current users to identify key pain points in our on-boarding flow, as well as preferred features suggestions. Our test user pool was selected to represent multiple user personas including:
The CloudOps analyst, long-time customer, potential customer-tech savvy, potential customer-minimal AWS console experience.
Pain point summary:
- Constantly switching tabs is annoying.
- Difficulty keeping track of on-boarding progress.
- Having to use a note pad to remember instructions between tabs.
- Never used a CLI (Command line Interface) and had to call in for help.
- Manually configuring everything requires multiple confirmations from a manager, requiring two people to do this.
UX improvement opportunities:
- Include a visual progress indicator
- Replace CLI config step with AWS console steps or automation script
- Move as much "standard setting" AWS console configuration to automation
- Connect Spot console to AWS API or web hook to avoid copy/pasting
The Consolidated Onboarding Flow
Working closely with engineering, we identified background steps that could be safely automated without breaching trust or violating enterprise security policies. This allowed us to reframe the onboarding as a 5-step in-product wizard that lives entirely within the Spot console, requiring only one additional tab open (AWS).
Key design decisions included:
Step progression indicators to provide clarity and reduce abandonment
In-line help and validation to eliminate guesswork
A fork in Step 3 offering an automatic or manual integration path to accommodate strict customer security policies
New Flow (2-tab experience)
Log into your AWS master payer account
Enable Cost and Usage Reports in AWS
Launch CloudFormation with Spot's pre-filled template
(Auto path) Spot connects and provisions automatically
(Manual path) User copies/pastes the RoleARN from the output tab into SpotConfirmation and success message
Net-new customers are presented with the provider selection page.
Open AWS Tab
To initiate the AWS-Spot connection the user needs their AWS account open. - Providing a direct link to their account prior to onboarding is another example of where automation efforts are prioritized in the background to simplify an otherwise tedious process.
AWS login tab
User login in to AWS using password and 2FA
Step 2
With the user logged in to Spot and their AWS account, Spot is ready to set up the Cost and Usage Report
Step 3
While several steps are being handled in the background on this improved experience, some customers have security mandates that preclude Spot from passing certain account data. - Our solution was to present the user with an option at this step:
1.) The default Spot template will handle several of the next steps for them in the background automatically.
2.) The Custom Template option allows them to enter sensitive data manually
Step 3a
Confirmation that the template ran successfully, saving the customer time and effort.
Step 4
I final manual required input, and the on boarding is complete.
Step 5
5 steps and a net-new customer is up and running with their Spot console completely integrated into their AWS account for real time tracking, analytics and management .
Impact
By reimagining onboarding as a streamlined, guided experience, with built-in flexibility for enterprise security needs, we significantly reduced user frustration, support overhead, and drop-off. The redesigned flow not only accelerated time-to-value but also boosted overall customer satisfaction across the board.
71%
Reduction in Rage Clicks
(FullStory session analysis)
28%
Reduction in support tickets
(ZenDesk reporting)
250%
Improved satisfaction rating
(Net Promoter Score Surveys)