How Calendly Combined Sprig and User Interviews to Solve Onboarding Challenges

Calendly is a leading cloud-based scheduling tool that helps users streamline calendars and meeting coordination. Like many fast-growing SaaS businesses, they faced challenges like an influx of diverse users signing up daily without a clear, immediate understanding of their specific goals in the platform. With limited research resources, Calendly needed an efficient way to gather insights, prioritize key user needs, and refine their onboarding process.

Using User Interviews' Research Hub and Sprig's in-app surveys, Calendly developed a structured approach to understanding user goals at sign-up, enabling data-driven decisions to improve activation, personalization, and user success.

The Problem

Calendly's rapid growth meant thousands of new users were signing up every day. These new users’ roles  spanned industries, job functions, and use cases. The team needed to answer key questions:

• Who are our new users, and what are they trying to accomplish?
• How can we prioritize features and onboarding flows based on user needs?
• How do we ensure the right research participants for deeper studies?

"We needed a way to move quickly, target the right users, and go from broad survey insights to in-depth qualitative research—all while keeping things scalable," 
-Gordon Toon, Manager of Design and Product Research at Calendly.

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The Solution

Calendly implemented a three-phase research approach using Sprig for in-app surveys and User Interviews’ Research Hub for panel management and recruitment.

Phase 1: Capturing Initial Insights with Sprig

Calendly deployed a targeted in-app survey through Sprig to capture users' immediate goals upon signing up. This allowed them to:

• Reach a high volume of new users without disrupting user experience.
• Gather thousands of qualitative responses in less than six hours.
• Identify common themes and priorities based on user feedback.

Phase 2: Deep Dive with User Interviews’ Research Hub

From the Sprig survey, users were invited to opt into a research panel in User Interviews’ Hub for follow-up interviews. This enabled the Calendly team to:

• Filter and segment participants based on their stated goals and product behavior.
• Quickly recruit and schedule high-quality, targeted interviews.
• Gain deeper qualitative insights into user challenges and expectations.

"Having a structured research panel in User Interviews’ Hub allowed us to easily filter participants by segment and get richer insights,"

–Gordon Toon, Manager of Design and Product Research at Calendly.

Phase 3: Continuous Learning and Iteration

Insights from interviews were used to refine survey options and continuously track goal completion over time. This approach allowed Calendly to:

• Measure shifts in user goals as new product features launched.
• Identify gaps in onboarding that prevented users from achieving success.
• Develop a rolling research program that provided ongoing value across teams.

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The Results

By integrating Sprig and User Interviews, Calendly successfully transformed its approach to onboarding research:

• Faster Insights: Thousands of responses were collected in hours, reducing time-to-insight.
• Better Participant Targeting: Opt-in research panels ensured interviews with the right users, not just any users.
• Stronger Personalization: Research insights informed goal-based onboarding improvements, leading to increased activation and feature adoption.
• Scalable Research Practices: A rolling research program meant insights were always fresh and actionable.

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“The combination of Sprig for quick insights and User Interviews for deep dives has given us a scalable way to keep user needs at the center of our decision-making. We’ve been able to refine our onboarding, better prioritize features, and create a more personalized experience for new users."Most of the other research tools out there are catered to dedicated user researchers, charging per seat. User Interviews has no seat cap. You can allow different levels of access to different people. That was a big deal for us.”
-Gordon Toon, Manager of Design and Product Research at Calendly.

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