Diagnose First-Trip Conversion Drop

Business Context

RideNow is a two-sided ride-hailing app operating in 40 cities. Over the last 7 days, the share of newly registered users who complete their first trip within 7 days of signup fell sharply, and the GM wants a fast diagnosis because first-trip conversion is the main activation KPI for new-user growth.

Metric Scenario

The 7-day first-trip conversion rate dropped from 32.4% in the prior 4-week baseline to 24.8% last week. During the same period, weekly new signups increased from 210,000 to 265,000. The drop is broad enough to matter financially: expected completed first trips fell from roughly 68,000 to 65,700 despite higher acquisition volume. Early funnel metrics show mixed movement: app install-to-signup stayed flat at 71%, identity verification completion declined from 91% to 84%, ride request rate among verified new users fell from 58% to 52%, and request-to-completed-trip conversion fell from 61% to 57%. A pricing update, a new onboarding flow, and a driver incentive change all launched within the last 10 days.

Requirements

1. Define the first-trip conversion metric precisely, including numerator, denominator, time window, and edge cases.
2. Decompose the drop across the new-user funnel and identify the most likely stage(s) driving the decline.
3. Prioritize the first cuts of analysis by segment and explain what you would check first.
4. Distinguish between product, marketplace, acquisition-quality, and data-quality explanations.
5. Recommend 3-5 concrete actions and the guardrail metrics you would monitor.

Data Available

• user_signup_events
• identity_verification_events
• ride_request_events
• trip_events
• pricing_quotes
• driver_supply_hourly
• marketing_attribution
• app_release_log
• experiment_exposure_log