A good show-up rate is important when you are doing research with real users. People can miss sessions though and technical issues may appear therefore show-up rate can suffer. A no-show can be very frustrating especially when you do a lot of preparations and work against deadlines.
We got you covered with all the reasonable things: booking confirmation modals with empathy reinforcement design, confirmation emails, multiple reminders in email and SMS.
Besides what we can do and what we automated we have a couple of suggestions about how to improve the show-up rate.
Add a profile picture
Your profile picture by default is an illustrated avatar that isn't as personal as a real photo. We show your profile picture on booking confirmation as an empathy reinforcement so testers are aware that you'll be waiting for them. Adding your profile picture will make the research more personal for the tester and improve the show-up rate.
Connect your calendar
Once you connect the calendar, we can automatically add your research sessions to it and prevent overbookings. Besides this obvious benefit, we also invite the tester for the calendar event. Many testers use their private calendar on a daily basis and their calendar will also notify them about the upcoming research session.
Add an extra screener question
We have an extra confirmation step in the booking flow for this but adding a custom screener adds a more personal touch which will improve the show-up rate.
Example: We'll be waiting for you on this call and are very keen to talk to you. Are you 100% sure you can show up for this session that you'll book?
Yes, I'll be there (qualify) / No (disqualify). Or something similar.
Consider tester time zone
Many times, the show-up rate is low simply because the provided time slots are inconvenient for testers. For example, EU based designers do research with people in the US during EU business hours. This is mostly very early morning hours for US testers which they'll book and then mostly fail to show up. The best time to run sessions are midday, afternoon and early in the evening.
Increase the incentive
The most effective way to improve tester engagement is to offer extra compensation for the sessions. This is particularly useful and sometimes even necessary when recruiting more specific audiences. Please contact us if you'd like to increase the tester payment and we'll help you figure out the sweet spot and set up your project.
We see a significant improvement in the show-up rate when most of these improvements are added.