Checkout form flow for an edtech website

The problem: The checkout form for customers to pay by invoice (standard for many German companies) at a small Edtech startup had been written quickly with no thought to the voice, tone, or style of the questions. It also asked unnecessary questions and left out some whose answers the customer service manager needed to create the invoice.

The solution: A new checkout form that better matched our conversational tone and asked the exact questions we needed the answers to for the invoicing process.

How I got there: First, I went through the form with our customer service manager to determine which questions were actually important to her sales and invoicing process. We also determined what other information it would make sense to include to avoid unnecessary questions from customers later. Next I audited the current form to see where it could be shortened and where I could add more conversational elements.

The challenges: The conversational, reassuring tone we’d developed for our website copy was challenging to apply to some of the questions and CTAs we need to use in the invoicing process, according to German law. The form format was also unfamiliar to many of our customers, who weren’t very tech literate, so it was important to clarify why we were asking questions and how long the process would take.

The biggest win: Being able to align different content touchpoint, including those throughout the payment process, to our voice and tone guidelines.

Note: Yes, this is German copy! I’m an American living in Berlin, where I worked with a German startup writing German content. I have a B2-C1 level of German but am only open to opportunities writing in English.