From bottlenecks to breakthroughs — how Webflow democratizes research with Rally

Webflow is a visual web design tool and hosting platform that enables designers and developers to create responsive websites without writing any code. The Webflow research team includes a Director of Insights, Product Decision Scientists, 4 User Researchers, and 1 ReOps professional. At Webflow, each researcher is aligned with core company pillars and designers, PMs, and engineers are regularly conducting research. 

“At Webflow, User Research takes on the most impactful initiatives, while at the same time empowering our Engineering, Product, and Design partners to conduct their own research. User Research and Research Ops work closely with Product Marketing, Data Science, and other areas of our organization to learn more about our customers’ needs,” said Heather Ashley, User Research Coordinator at Webflow. “Very much like a site built in Webflow itself, User Research is never completely finished and goes through constant iterations, but having teams share continuous insights frequently helps to keep stakeholders in the loop and provides us with infinite opportunities to learn about our market and customers.”

For this case study, we spoke to:

• Heather Ashley — User Research Coordinator
• Chelsea Myers — Senior User Researcher
• Hira Qarni — User Researcher
• Braden King — Senior User Researcher
• Laith Ulaby — former Director of Insights 

Continue reading to hear the challenges their team faced and how they now use Rally for faster and more collaborative research.

What wasn’t working: Recruitment is a bottleneck.

“I think anyone who is a researcher will say that research recruitment can be the biggest bottleneck before kicking off a project,” said Hira. 

The tools the Webflow team was using to recruit and manage their users for research were clunky and disjointed. Setting up and launching a research study was not only time-consuming but also a source of considerable frustration. “There are so many steps to launching a successful study, and having the wrong tools adds to the stress,” said Hira. “It was also consuming the mental energy that should be focused on the research itself.” She often found herself piecing together solutions or handling each step manually. 

“At Webflow, we move quickly. We generally have limited time and bandwidth to launch successful studies,” she continued. “The more time it takes to set up and launch a study, the less time there is for everything else that matters.” 

Additionally, Chelsea said it was difficult to have a centralized view of recruiting projects. “It was hard for us to keep track of things retroactively.” For example, Chelsea explained that they often could not determine the exact number of individuals to contact to meet their participant target.

Tooling wasn’t promoting collaboration. 

The team found it difficult to include collaborators and stakeholders in the research process. “We have a lot of non-researchers, like product managers and designers, who may be less-versed in conducting User Research,” said Heather. The existing tools for managing participants and recruitment were not only unwelcoming but actively dissuaded or obstructed partners from engaging in research. The Webflow team needed an approachable solution that facilitated, rather than frustrated, their ambitious research goals.

The solution: A collaborative, customizable, & intuitive User Research CRM

After exploring multiple solutions, the Webflow team chose Rally as their User Research CRM. Rally has revolutionized how Heather and the team handle every facet of the research recruitment and participant management process, from crafting screeners and collecting NDAs to disbursing incentives. Here are a few particular stand-out improvements the Webflow team has experienced with Rally:

Quicker and easier recruitment of their own users.

Before adopting Rally, identifying the right participants could take several days or even up to a week. Rally has drastically reduced this timeframe. “Even with some of our harder-to-find participants, we’re still able to reach them and it’s not taking us days to do so,” said Heather. “Rally keeps everything organized and on-track.” For instance, the Webflow team can now manage the entire end-to-end process for research recruitment within Rally, eliminating the need for disjointed tools and manual tasks. “I haven’t found a better tool to manage all the logistics of setting up a study,” said Braden. 

“The logistics for conducting research can be a blackhole of time and resources,” said Laith. “Rally does a great job reducing a lot of that overhead and providing an end-to-end solution for all the different phases of a research project. This created a better experience for both the participant and our researchers, who are able to focus more on conducting the research and less on managing the process.”

Customizable study outreach with flexible screening options. 

Hira, whose work generally focuses on qualitative research at Webflow, frequently utilizes Rally for setting up screener surveys to assess feature performance and recruit users for moderated interviews across various segments.

“Rally’s screener builder is really easy to use and being able to build the screener directly into Rally versus using some other tool is helpful,” said Hira. Rally’s flexibility allows Hira to craft custom screeners, capture responses as unique attributes, and utilize these for filtering in future studies. 

While Hira frequently uses Rally’s dynamic screener builder, she also takes advantage of its integration with Typeform, which allows Hira to send surveys, track responses, and save survey data to participant profiles. “I really appreciate the flexibility, which is key. The choice really matters.” With Rally’s powerful integrations, everything from initial invites to incentives are harmonized in one place.

Rally's integration with Snowflake has streamlined the process of creating target groups, reducing both the time and steps required. This integration has also diminished the team's reliance on Webflow's data scientists. "Typically, we would partner with a data scientist to assist us in writing complex queries in Snowflake," Braden explained. "Following that, we would export the list as a .csv file and upload it to Rally. Now, we can proactively pull all common recruiting criteria directly into Rally for all of our users, which saves time for both the Research and Data Science teams."

Unlocking self-serve research with customization and guardrails. 

“Customization is very important,” said Heather. “With the templates I create in Rally, I want them to be as customizable as possible – not just for me, but also for anyone who uses them.” 

Rally's customizable features and templates provide both researchers and non-researchers the liberty to tailor their studies, ensuring engagement with the appropriate audience while adhering to best practices. Through Rally’s Governance features like consent templates and cool-down periods, both researchers and non-researchers are empowered to practice secure and compliant research. “As a ReOps team of one, Rally has greatly lessened my anxiety.”   

Secure and stress-free email outreach 

“One of the most stressful experiences for researchers is sending out thousands and thousands of emails in a day,” said Chelsea. “The proving experience for me with Rally was when I was able to confidently send out hundreds of emails without the usual anxiety and stress of wondering, ‘is this working?’” This frees up time and mental space for the more meaningful tasks on our plates. 

A centralized command center for User Research

“The number one benefit of Rally is the ability to have a command center view of my research,” said Chelsea. Rally serves as a comprehensive hub for User Research that securely manages participants and their data along with the end-to-end recruitment process.

Within Rally, Chelsea can quickly gauge the progress of her studies and understand the recruitment funnel more effectively, thanks to detailed tracking of participant activity – study invites, study completion, sent incentives, delivered emails, contact status, and more. 

“When I’m doing research, I can log in every morning and see where we are at and where we need to go. And then I know for that day what my tasks need to be to pull those levers to make sure that the research is hitting the timeline that I promised,” said Chelsea. 

“Rally feels like an extension of our ops team.”

The effectiveness of any tool is greatly amplified by the team behind it. For the team at Webflow, Rally stands out as not just a tool but an integral extension of their operations team.

“It’s so valuable to have the additional support Rally provides,” said Hira. “We know the Rally team is going to get back to us and either give us suggestions on best practices or walk us through a bug or a feature request.” 

When onboarding to Rally, Hira said the team was very transparent and provided a white-glove experience. Rally were particularly helpful in ensuring things like participant and screener data were safely and securely transferred. The level of detail contrasts sharply with other platforms, where Hira noted, “I sometimes don’t even bother reaching out to them because they take many days or even a week to respond. With Rally, I know the team is going to respond and help us out really quickly on a timeline that makes sense for us. That’s huge.”

Braden said when it comes to the Rally team, he knows any question he asks will get answered. “I know I can lean on them as much as I need and they will set me up for success.” 

The Webflow team said they appreciate the easy access to communication channels for immediate support and feedback. “The Slack channel is a godsend,” said Heather. 

This direct line to the Rally team not only facilitates problem-solving, but also fosters a sense of competence and confidence in their work. “Rally helps me feel like I’m doing my job both correctly and well,” said Heather. “I truly feel like I can ask the Rally team anything, like an AMA but actually an ARA – Ask Rally Anything.” 

Rally listens. 

“In the short time we’ve been using Rally, it’s exceeded my expectations in how quickly they’ve been able to ship the features we’ve needed,” said Hira. 

Not only has Rally quickly rolled-out large, high-impact features, they’ve also focused on enhancing user experience through quality-of-life improvements, like email completion and open rates. “Those little things add really up,” said Hira. “And the speed at which Rally has been able to ship these was something we didn’t expect or anticipate and it’s been awesome. It feels like Rally listens and is constantly iterating, and that really feels good.”

“We really don’t see this with other tools we use and it’s a huge bonus with Rally,” she said. “The team is so wonderful and constantly shipping so many great new features. And if there are things Rally doesn’t yet have, I know they will get addressed in the future. That’s something we really do pay attention to. I have so much faith in the Rally team.” 

Rally is well-positioned to help democratize research.

With Rally, “research has very quickly become really integrated with all the different areas of product development at Webflow,” said Hira. Rally is enabling more team members to develop a greater understanding of User Research. “If they aren’t launching their own studies, they are becoming more involved and up to speed on how the research process works.”

‍
As stakeholders and cross-functional partners better understand the research process, the impact of the research function grows and more trust is placed in research. “Rally is the hub where everything behind the scenes happens,” said Braden. “It helps our research function’s impact and increases the trust our stakeholders have in our team.” 

Rally’s design prioritizes collaboration, making it simpler for stakeholders and cross-functional teams to engage with research activities. For instance, stakeholders and cross-functional partners can easily integrate their calendars into Rally for seamless team-wide scheduling across all time zones. 

“It’s so great that I don’t have to finagle three different calendars,” said Hira. “It’s easy to just invite your stakeholders in.” Hira said Rally also makes it simple for stakeholders to review screeners and provide feedback on research studies.  “Rally is truly designed with collaboration in mind.” 

The ability for non-researchers and cross-functional partners to quickly adapt and contribute to research efforts within Rally has been a game-changer for Webflow. “We want to empower cross-functional partners to do meaningful research, but a lot of these folks only do research occasionally and it’s a hindrance when they have to relearn how to use research tools with each project,” said Laith.

Rally enables non-researchers to quickly and easily run their own studies, enhancing the research function’s reach and impact. “It’s not difficult for someone to jump into Rally for the first time and spin up a study fairly quickly without that learning curve,” said Hira. 

“It didn’t occur to me that a tool could be collaborative with stakeholders and partners that are non-researchers,” she said. Heather agreed, “Rally really empowers non-researchers to do their own research – it truly is vital to our research function.

A User Research CRM is key to scaling your research practice.

“Rally has thoroughly convinced me that it is an essential part of my research toolkit,” said Chelsea. “It’s the type of tool that enables customization to each project you’re doing that can scale to fit the different needs of your team.”’

“Rally is meeting us where we are and supporting us in running the strategic research studies we previously lacked the time to focus on,” said Heather. 

“If you’re looking for an all-in-one CRM tool with a team that cares about you and cares about the work you’re doing, Rally is your best bet,” said Hira.