How to reduce switching costs: a case study of Gmail’s competitor — Proton Mail
Are you working on a product that requires users to switch from another product to yours?
If so, this case study will show you how you can identify what kind of changes in the user experience can help you steal your competitor’s users.
Today’s Article
8 Min Read | 1626 Words
- Understanding Proton Mail
- Expanding on Switching Cost
- Exploring Contacts
- Analysing the User Journey in Contacts
- Conclusion
When you are launching a product in an area where it’s already highly dominated, it needs to have:
- Competitive Unique Value Proposition (UVP): to be able to differentiate the product from competitors
- Small switching cost: making it easier for users to adopt the new solution
Product Glossary
UVP — Unique Value Proposition: a brief statement that explains why your business offering is unique and provides value to customers.
Switching cost — the expenses a consumer faces when they decide to switch from one product to another. While these costs typically involve money, they can also include psychological factors, the effort required, and the time invested in making the switch.
In this article, I will analyse Proton Mail as a product in a highly dominated market and show you how they can optimise the switching cost by modifying their user experience.
1. Understanding Proton Mail
Proton Mail, an email client established a decade ago, competes with industry giants like Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook mail.
Proton’s key features include:
- Competitive value proposition: which is privacy, and Proton distinguishes itself as the most secure email service for privacy-conscious individuals.
- Not-so-small switching cost: transitioning from Gmail to Proton demands significant effort, a topic I will expand on in this article.
1.1 Unique value proposition — privacy
You might think that Gmail is already secure, and it is, in a way. But Google still can access your emails and scan them for advertising or other purposes.
For example, if you receive a job offer in your Gmail inbox, technically, Google can access it and use it to learn about your income and job title so they can target you with relevant ads.
“If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.”
Proton Mail is considered a secure alternative to Gmail. It is end-to-end encrypted, while Gmail is not. In simple terms, it means that Proton can’t scan your messages. Unlike Gmail, Proton’s business model does not rely on ads, ensuring user data remains inaccessible to anyone but the users themselves.
1.2 Switching cost
Switching from Gmail to Proton requires a significant effort. To entirely switch, you need to import your emails, contacts, calendar, and files. You also need to inform your network that you’re using a new email address and change log-ins on other websites where you used Gmail.
2. Expanding on Switching Cost
2.1 Examples
Switching from one product to another, such as Uber to Bolt, is relatively straightforward — you download a new app, create an account, and start using the service.
In contrast, transitioning from Gmail to Proton is more like switching between 2 ecosystems. Both companies offer a suite of interconnected products like email, calendar, drive, and password manager.
Such transitions require much more effort than just downloading an app and creating an account.
A prime illustration is Apple and Android. You’ve probably encountered lots of people hesitating to switch from iPhone to Android phone or vice versa because of switching costs, not to mention the importance of familiarity with a new product experience.
Product Glossary
Familiarity bias: Tendency for people to favour products and experiences that are familiar to them, even when they may be objectively worse.
Example: People consistently choose the same restaurant or cafe they’ve been to before, even if new establishments offer better quality or value. They opt for the familiar option out of habit or comfort, even if trying something new could be more enjoyable or beneficial.
Proton meets the familiarity criterion as its product functionalities closely resemble those of its competitors. Thus, users do not need to acquire new knowledge to adopt Proton products.
However, Proton does not effectively capitalise on this familiarity to facilitate the switching experience.
2.2 Strategies to reduce it
Proton offers a feature called ‘Easy Switch,’ which facilitates email forwarding, contact, calendar, and email importing. This functionality assists users in transitioning from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or other email providers to Proton.
In the upcoming sections, I will analyse the user journey for importing contacts and propose a simplified version to reduce the switching cost.
Product Glossary
User Journey: steps that a user goes through while engaging with a product.
3. Exploring Contacts
3.1 What is contact?
Whenever you email a new recipient, Google creates a contact. So next time you want to send an email to the same person, instead of typing their full email address, you will see their name in the suggestions.
Did you know that Google has a dedicated Google Contacts feature that allows you to add and remove contacts manually?
A quick research for this article showed that only a few people use this functionality; instead, they use other methods for creating contacts.
We’ll get back to this topic later.
3.2 Importance of importing contacts in the switching process
Imagine the frustration of manually entering each of your contacts’ email addresses every time you want to send an email.
It would certainly be a frustrating experience, wouldn’t it?
That’s why importing your contact list is crucial when making the switch from Gmail to Proton Mail.
Now, let’s explore the current functionality available for importing contacts.
4. Analysing the User Journey in Contacts:
Page 1: import contacts
First, the user clicks on the Contacts button on the home page.
The user starts the journey from the ‘Import Contacts’ button.
Page 2: choose the desired option
Upon clicking the button, users are presented with a modal offering two options:
Route 1: Upload CSV or VCF file
Route 2: ‘Easy Switch’
While the 1st route is prioritised, the 2nd option may have been more intuitive and easy for users.
Additionally, for users unfamiliar with CSV files, there is a high chance they may need to search for guidance on how to export them from Gmail.
Suggestion N1
Proton could offer guidance or include a tutorial page for the ‘CSV import’ option, redirecting users to the following page:
Page 3: ‘Easy Switch’ page
Clicking the ‘Easy Switch’ option redirects users to a new page.
While the current page layout is ideal for users looking to transfer all their data, it may overwhelm those starting from the ‘import contacts’ button.
Instead, focusing solely on contacts can reduce cognitive load for users.
Also, it is too early to upsell — let’s first help a user achieve their goal and then suggest importing additional items, like emails or calendars.
Product Glossary
Cognitive load: refers to the amount of mental effort and resources used during learning and information processing.
Upselling: a sales technique used to persuade a customer who is already buying something to buy more.
In our scenario, the ‘Import Messages’ section is the most suitable option on this page for importing contacts. Let’s click on it to proceed.
Page 4: select items for import
When the user selects a service provider, such as Google, they are presented with a modal with three options: Import Emails, Contacts, and Calendar.
Again, too early to upsell.
Ok, selected everything. Let’s import!
Oops! Only 2 contacts were imported.
Page 5: number of imported contacts
But where are all those hundreds of people I’ve communicated with via email for the last 15 years?
Why haven’t they been imported?
After some investigation, I discovered the reason.
Do you recall when we mentioned earlier in the article that people rarely add contacts manually and use other methods for contact creation?
Let’s dive into it.
During interviews with Gmail users, it became apparent that many were unaware of a dedicated contact page within their Google account. None of the participants had utilised this feature for contact creation.
Instead, they employed alternative methods such as sending dummy emails or manually saving contacts in notes apps.
Following the dummy email method, they expected the contact name to appear in email suggestions.
Google saves these contacts in two folders: Frequent and Other Contacts. However, Proton only accesses the first folder, which contains manually added contacts. This is why only 2 contacts were imported.
Suggestion N2
Proton can access the other 2 folders for a full contact list.
4.6 Proposed redesign
Let’s revisit the Easy Switch page and Import Contacts modal. We mentioned the need for simplification.
To recap, this is an existing flow, with 3 steps:
Below is a simplified version, featuring just 1 step, developed in collaboration with my product designer associates at Slick Studio:
What did we change? Let’s take a closer look.
We integrated Easy Switch’s functionality for importing contacts and CSV upload routes into a single modal, accessible to users upon clicking the ‘import contacts’ button.
- 1st route will solely import contacts, and upon completion, users will receive a suggestion to import additional items. This way, the main journey wouldn’t be disturbed.
- 2nd route will guide users on how to export CSV from Gmail or other mail providers.
This way, we reduce users’ cognitive load and provide assistance when needed.
Conclusion
Through our analysis, we’ve identified that relying solely on your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) may not suffice when targeting your competitors’ users. Addressing the considerable effort required for users to switch platforms could accelerate your goal of acquisition.
Share your thoughts below and don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn.
