Twilio Commerce Platform
Twilio is an enterprise customer engagement platform
Designing a self-serve subscription system, streamlining product purchases without sales assistance.
Timeline
July 2023 -> present
Role
Principal Product Designer
Platforms
Scale
Enterprise
Overview
Twilio underwent significant changes during the pandemic, driven by rapid growth and the need to adapt to new consumer behaviours with a heavy reliance on our sales team. As the Principal Product Designer, I was tasked with creating a vision for a self service commerce platform within our console, as well as breaking it down into deliverables, culminating in the launch of a successful MVP. This case study explores the challenges faced, the design solutions implemented, and the impact of these changes on the user experience.
Exploration
To kick things off, I explored best-in-class industry standards. With countless companies operating in the SaaS space, I wanted to identify common patterns, gather insights from case studies, and determine what could be effectively adapted for Twilio.
My goal wasn’t to reinvent the wheel—customers expect familiar patterns that make navigating interfaces intuitive. Forcing users to relearn a UI unnecessarily can disrupt their experience.
As I researched, I began sketching ideas, iterating on how these established patterns could be tailored to meet Twilio's unique needs.
Vision
To gain alignment and buy-in, we needed to craft a compelling narrative for leadership, stakeholders, and the wider team about the future direction of this initiative.
Collaborating closely with the Director of Product for the Commerce Platform, we defined the key story points and identified the essential screens needed to effectively convey our vision.
With a clear plan in place, I got to work in Figma, translating ideas into high-fidelity mockups that brought our vision to life.
MVP
With alignment secured from leadership, stakeholders, and the team, we shifted our focus to defining the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Collaborating with the Director of Product and Engineering leads, we outlined the core features to prioritise for our initial release. Before diving into development, I created an interactive prototype in Figma to validate our approach. This allowed us to conduct usability testing, gather valuable feedback, and ensure we were building a solution that truly met user needs.
View
To validate our approach, we selected a small group of customers to access and view the initial offer.
Subscribe
Customers could subscribe to the offer, paying a prorated amount for the first month using their account balance.
Active
Customers could easily view their active subscription, including the renewal date and the option to cancel if desired.
Cancel
Customers could cancel their subscription at any time while retaining access to the offer until the end of the billing cycle, aligning with common subscription practices.
Usability testing
We tested the prototype with seven customers who manage their billing through Twilio. The feedback was encouraging—no major usability issues were identified during the sessions.
Out of the seven participants, five expressed a willingness to subscribe to the tested offer if it were available in the console. Additionally, all participants expected features like transactional email receipts and detailed savings statistics, highlighting the importance of transparent and actionable insights.
As the offer leveraged Twilio's existing pay-as-you-go model, we encouraged customers to enable "auto-recharge." While customers understood the feature, some raised questions about how it would integrate with a recurring monthly subscription. This provided valuable insight for the team, suggesting that a standard monthly credit card payment model might better align with customer expectations in the future.
Outcome
In September 2024, we launched our first offer to a small percentage of customers, introducing a modern and scalable subscription system in the process.
By January 2025, we had expanded to include two offers available to this initial user base, with 30 subscriptions actively in use. This phased approach allowed us to refine the system and gather feedback, setting the stage for broader rollout and continued growth.