case-studies

Sama: Improving retention (+4%)

Ansh Agrawal

Ansh Agrawal

— 1 min read

About Sama.io

Sama.io is a B2B SaaS platform designed to improve employee performance by offering personalized, high-quality 1-1 coaching. Companies use Sama.io to help employees grow through structured coaching sessions, guided frameworks, and ongoing progress tracking. Long-term retention is critical for their business model, as ongoing engagement directly influences coaching effectiveness and customer value.

Challenge: Low Return Engagement After Coaching Sessions

While initial engagement on Sama.io was strong, the team observed a significant drop-off after users completed their first coaching session. Most employees did not return regularly, which limited:

  • The long-term impact of coaching
  • Visibility into progress over time
  • The platform’s broader value proposition

A deeper analysis showed that the core issue wasn’t the coaching sessions themselves, but a lack of compelling reasons for users to return between sessions.

Solution

To understand what differentiated returning users from non-returning ones, we conducted a behavioural analysis comparing usage patterns across both groups. A clear insight emerged:

Users who consistently returned were heavy users of the “Notes” feature.

The Notes feature allowed employees to record session insights, track progress, reflect on learnings, and prepare for upcoming conversations. However:

  • It wasn’t easy to find
  • It required multiple clicks to access
  • It wasn’t integrated naturally into the user workflow

To address this, we redesigned the UI to make Notes:

  • More prominent - moved into prime screen real estate
  • Easier to access - reduced interaction steps
  • Integrated into the coaching experience - tied visually and functionally to upcoming sessions and past conversations

By elevating a feature that already had strong correlation with repeat engagement, we created a natural loop for users to return to the platform regularly.

Result

Improving the visibility and accessibility of the Notes feature led to a 4% lift in retention.

Users now returned more frequently to:

  • Review what they discussed in past sessions
  • Capture new reflections
  • Prepare for future coaching conversations

This strengthened user habits, increased session effectiveness, and improved the platform’s long-term engagement health.

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