Onboarding experience to help CallHub customers get campaign-ready
Redesigning the home page into an adaptive checklist for compliance, setup, and status across texting and calling.
Project details
Client
Callhub
Role
Product Designer
Year
2025
WHAT IS CALLHUB?
CallHub is a platform businesses use to run texting and calling campaigns.
Political and Non-profit organizations use it to reach their audience at scale. But new users kept getting lost before they could send a single message — so the goal was to rebuild the home page into a clear path that gets them to their first campaign.
THE PROBLEM
New users couldn’t get past setup to launch a campaign
Based on the session recordings of new users. Most them tried to run a real campaign, hit a wall, and ended up in support. The few who got moving struggled with 10DLC registration — and while they waited on approval, the product told them nothing about their status.
US texting is compliance-gated
Strict US rules stop every texting customer: they must register a 10DLC brand. The form is long and detailed, and one wrong field gets the whole application rejected.
The hard setup makes people give up
Because 10DLC registration is long and easy to get wrong, many customers leave it unfinished.
Compliance-first is a promise the product has to keep
CallHub is a compliance-first platform. If the product doesn’t guide customers through that gate, its core promise breaks.
The product never set intention
Most people arrived, explored, and left, because nothing pointed them toward success.
THE FLOW
The path splits the moment someone signs up
Before the checklist, signup asks one question: what are you here for?
Users pick Texting, Calling, Email, or Relational Organizing — one, some, or all. That choice branches the whole experience, so the onboarding they see always matches what they came to do.
IDEATION
The card was the whole game — so I iterated it hard
Everything hinged on one thing: getting the user to take the action. I went through 30+ versions of the onboarding card. The rejected directions taught me the most — here’s how I got to the final one.
DESIGN
One checklist that adapts to each user
Instead of a separate page per channel, I built one checklist on the home page. It shows steps in order, tracks what’s done, and changes based on whether the user picked texting or calling.
Show step at a time but also next
Steps show in order — you can’t skip ahead to one that depends on an earlier step, so there’s no guessing what to do next
Order-independent completion
If a step is already done, it’s struck off automatically — the flow respects work the user has already done
Visible progress
A persistent “2/4” shows momentum and how close they are to launching
Benefit-first copy
Every step leads with the why, not just the what — e.g. verification helps more of your messages get delivered
A clear action hierarchy
One primary action per step, plus a quieter “Get assistance” that opens support pre-filled with the right context
Texting
10DLC Brand Registeration
Rent a number
Import contacts
Calling
Import contacts
Verify your Caller ID (Register for Shaken/Stir)
Completion State
Giving users freedom to choose/change there channel
DESIGNING THE PART CALLHUB CAN'T CONTROL
The hard part wasn’t the smooth path — it was everything that can go wrong
Carrier approvals happen off-platform, take days, and can be rejected. The home page had to show each of those states clearly. So the “Register your brand” step changes with the situation.
A progress tracker while they wait
A trial number is enabled so users can keep testing while approval is pending
The reason, and a way to fix it
The step most likely to make someone quit gets a calm message, the reason it failed, and a direct path to resubmit
Straight to the next step
Once approved, the checklist moves them forward — and finally to “You’re all set,” where the main action becomes: create a campaign
MEASURING IMPACT
The flow carries users through, and more reach activation.
Two signals stand out: users move through the hardest step at a high rate, and more accounts reach activation even as overall signups declined.
65%
of users who reach the use-case step complete it
2.7×
more users started brand registration across 2025
593
brands registered · 149 use cases submitted
COMPLIANCE FUNNEL · UNIQUE USERS
Started brand registration · 593 · 100%
Reached use-case registration · 230 · 39%
Submitted a use case · 149 · 25%
The strongest signal is the final step: 65% of users who reach use-case registration complete it.
REFLECTION
What I learned
I worked closely with the PM, who owned the project; with engineering on implementation, quality, and edge cases; and with support to understand the compliance rules well enough to design around them.
Invisibility of status
Watching recordings, the biggest damage wasn’t any single hard step — it was the product going quiet while users waited on approval. Showing status mattered as much as the steps themselves
The error states are the real work
The smooth path was the easy part. Most of the effort went into the harder states — under review, rejected with a reason, already done — and that’s what makes it feel like real onboarding, not just a checklist
One flexible pattern beats many custom ones
Sticking to one checklist that adapts by channel and remembers progress kept things simple for users and easier to maintain
Next projects
Sumeet Jirwankar
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