Mockup 1 - Root Cause Analysis

Let's say the interviewer has given you the question as follows:-

Interviewer:- We have seen a downfall in the daily active users and it is about 6-7%, can you identify the root cause of this?

Step 1:- Understand the question and ask some clarifying questions

You:- What does the company do?

Interviewer:- The company is a service-based organization, that provides services for home services such as plumbing, ac repairs, cleaning, etc

You:- Which platform we have seen the fall in say (web/mobile)

Interviewer:- Mobile, we do not have Web as of now.

You:- What do you mean by DAU?

• Is it the active users who open the app, maintains a session, and close
• Or the users that are making some transactions

Interviewer:- We are considering DAU as the users who are making bookings on our app

You:- The fall in DAU is a trend that we have observed this week or what?

Interviewer:- Yes we have seen the 6-7% fall this week but seen an overall growth

Step 2:- Ask for some time to evaluate the RCA and also explain how you are going to approach

You:- I going to follow the inside-out approach which means I will be looking for internal factors first and then the external factors that can impact the fall in DAU, I hope you are fine with this.

Interviewer:- Yes, works!

>> Looking for Internal factors:-

You:- Check if the Data Analytics tools are reporting the right numbers

Interviewer:- This is working fine

You:- Have we made changes to the Product/App changes such that the user journey gets impacted?

Interviewer:- We have made some cosmetics changes on the app (Flag)

You:- Let me have the understanding of the user journey or funnel, & check each step, and tries to identify if something looks off the track.

User app launch > Search Services/Product > add to the cart > Product Detailed Page > Checkout Page > Payment Page > Booking Confirmation Page

Please confirm if the above funnel sounds fine to you, also, which part of the user journey did you observe the drop-in?

Interviewer:- The funnel looks good, and the answer to your second question is, that the discovery of the product or services is fine, we haven't seen anything outlying, I think you need to deep dive into the later part of the funnel

You:- Understood, following up on the same, have we made changes to the "Product Detailed Page" page or later stage pages?

Interviewer:- Yes, we have added some reviews and custom specifications section at the bottom of already existing information such as ratings, what services are going to be provided, and price, which the service provider or the vendor can also write on their own.

You:- Generally, the booking button or check-out button stays on the top, is this not happening in our case?

Interviewer:- Yes, this is not happening

You:- This might be one reason because there can some users who are customed to use the older version of the app and sudden change on the app, might get them to a loose sight of the Bookings button. Also, we need to check with the analytics team if users are scrolling to the bottom of the page or they are just going back without scrolling, this can hint out.

Considering edge cases:- Also, this may not be the entire factor of the fall in DAU, so we should look for users who have made the scrolls and are able to book the service/product. There can be certain cases where something else might get impact the bookings.

>> Looking for External factors:-

You:- If there are political changes, news regarding services disruption, etc

Interviewer:- Nothing of that sort, I guess you have identified the probable reason for the fall in DAU. Thank You!

Please do share your suggestion/feedback in the comment section. I would love to take them and improve.