From time-consuming demos to a free trial
Ryo Chiba, Co-founder of Topic, and the team had early traction with their SEO Content Optimization solution, but they were still spending a significant amount of time on sales and onboarding calls. They were also seeing a significant number of customers purchase the lowest tier as a trial run—driving down ASP and increasing churn risk.
The challenges
- Too much time spent on sales demos.
- Moving to a self-service free trial model without hurting conversion rates.
- Avoiding that customers buy the lowest tier as a trial = Higher risk of churn.
Why they chose Userflow
- User-friendly and advanced flow builder.
- Supported complex application scenarios.
The results
- 20 hrs/week saved on sales demos.
- Reduced churn.
- A partnership for the future.
To solve both of these problems, they decided to move to a self-service free trial. But they knew that their product had complex scenarios that required guidance and onboarding to bring first-time users to their “Aha” moments and drive trial conversions. Some years back in another company, Ryo had tried an in-app guidance tool, but he was searching for a more modern solution. That search brought him to Userflow.
“Our product is rather complex due to the jobs our users are using it for, thus guiding users to their "aha" moment is essential to us.”
- Ryo Chiba, Topic
The usability and reliability of Userflow was key
Ryo signed up for a 14-day free trial and was immediately able to build onboarding flows for even the most complex scenarios. The builder's UX, reliability, and depth of functionality left a strong impression—and within no time, the team had a full self-serve onboarding flow live in production.
“Userflow was easy to use, and I could build flows for advanced scenarios in our application, without running into issues.”
- Ryo Chiba, Topic
Saved 20 hrs/week and reduced churn
The onboarding flow of Userflow showed immediate results. Now instead of spending time on trial handholding and onboarding, Ryo and the team could focus on other high-value aspects of their business. Overall they were saving 4 hrs/day (20 hrs/week) without diminishing service quality.
"The free trial combined with Userflow has allowed us to free up to 20 hrs/week to focus on marketing, building product, and connecting with existing customers instead. This is key for a young business like ours and our customers love the self-service experience."
- Ryo Chiba, Topic
It also enabled them to run a smooth free trial experience, avoiding the problem of users buying a lower-tier plan as a trial and potentially churning.
“Since we launched this new system in March, we have had almost zero subscription churn, whereas before we had about 30-50% of our lowest tier users churn after a few months because they were effectively using it as a trial, which messed up our numbers.”
- Ryo Chiba, Topic
Expanded use cases to come
Topic plans to continue using Userflow as a key mechanism to ensure onboarding and feature adoption is as seamless as possible, even as they roll out more features. Ryo is confident that Userflow has the advanced capabilties to support their growth.
“As we add more functionality, it will be harder to onboard customers, but Userflow will make this easier.”
