Improving the Tutor Onboarding Journey

The Problem Space

Tutor onboarding is one of Course Hero’s most critical funnels, it powers marketplace supply, supports student outcomes, and shapes tutors’ first impression of the platform. Yet over time, the onboarding experience became unintentionally fragmented: unclear steps, tool-jumping, slow verification, and inconsistent communication created confusion for tutors and operational burden for staff.

Why now?

As the company prepares to retire its 3rd party workflow system and transition to a new internal ATS, we had a timely opportunity to step back and fully understand the full ecosystem. I led the creation of Course Hero’s first end-to-end Tutor Onboarding Service Blueprint — a holistic map of the tutor journey and supporting operations — giving the teams a shared view of how tutors progress through onboarding and how teams and systems support them behind the scenes.

My Role

I led this initiative as the UX Researcher, collaborating with a Product Manager, Service Owners and Operations Team. My responsibilities included:

  • Designing and conducting qualitative interviews with tutors and internal teams

  • Facilitating cross-functional workshops

  • Synthesizing findings into the Tutor Onboarding Service Blueprint

  • Guiding the team in adopting a service design lens to problem-solving

PROCESS

My Approach

Throughout the project, I Introduced a service-design lens that helped teams think beyond their own steps and see the onboarding journey as an interconnected system.

I worked closely with PM and Service Owners to scope the project, bring the right teams together and produce a blueprint that could meaningfully influence roadmap decisions.

 

Service Blueprinting Approach by Nielsen Norman Group

 

Discovery and Alignment

 

Understanding the ecosystem

I led the creation of a stakeholder map, helping the team see every actor involved - from tutors, and reviewers to support agents and system owners. This became the foundation for understanding the key players in the tutors onboarding journey.

I began by conducting 1:1 stakeholder interviews with both front-stage (tutor-facing) and backstage (operational) staff.

These sessions revealed:

  • duplicated work hidden behind system transitions

  • unclear steps that created emotional friction for tutors

  • dependencies

  • overlapping responsibilities that made ownership ambiguous



Based on the stakeholder interviews, I analyzed the insights and created Personas which made it easier to quickly digest each team’s goals, behaviours, motivation, and pains at a glance


 
 
 

Mapping the Service Space

Using early insights from interviews, I built out the service landscape — identifying all actors, systems, and workflows that shape the tutor journey from discovery → application → onboarding → activation.

This exercise surfaced previously invisible backstage dependencies and helped the team understand the true complexity of onboarding.

Collaborative Workshops

I facilitated a 3hr cross-functional workshop in Miro where staff from different departments worked together to build the service blueprint.

Each team:

  • Added missing touchpoints

  • Identified where things broke down

  • Marked opportunities using shared visual language

  • Aligned on severity and impact

This participatory approach ensured no single team “owner the truth”, gave every team a voice, and ensured everyone felt ownership of the final blueprint.


Creating the Service Blueprint

For the first time, invisible backstage processes were made visible, helping teams see exactly where tutors experienced friction and where staff processes broke down behind the scenes.

The final output was a high-fidelity service blueprint that visualized the entire onboarding experience:

  • tutor actions

  • fronstage interactions

  • backstage processes

  • supporting systems

  • evidence and data

  • pain points and opportunities

 

KEY INSIGHTS

  • Hidden complexity was driving tutor drop off: Much of the friction experienced by tutors stemmed from internal inconsistencies and manual workarounds

  • Internal teams unintentionally working in silos: The blueprint revealed duplicate steps, unclear ownership, and missing communication bridges between groups

  • Emotional friction mattered as much as technical friction: Interviews showed tutor confusion, anxiety, and uncertainty during verification - issues analytics alone didn’t reveal

  • Alignment required a shared foundation for change: The blueprint became a common reference point for PMs, designers, and operational teams - reducing debates about “what to focus on first”

 

OUTCOME OF SERVICE DESIGN WORK & IMPACT

 

The Tutor Onboarding Service Blueprint v1 became a foundational artifact for both product and operations:

  • Informed the ATS MVP roadmap by highlighting highest-impact issues

  • Helped prioritize enhancements with quantitative validation (CSAT + severity/frequency scoring)

  • Served as a baseline for measuring improvements year over year

Roadmap Influence: I partnered with the PM to map blueprint insights into MVP v1 and v2 - linking operational pain points with upcoming product requirements.

 

NEXT STEPS

High Value Human-Centered Improvements

To ensure long-term service quality, I recommended:

  • annual blueprint refreshes to track progress

  • incorporate tutor sentiment (CSAT) into ongoing evaluation

  • continuing cross functional workshops during major releases

This practice helps CH stay aligned around a scalable, onboarding experience centered around real human needs.

Amy Linjourney mapping, service blueprint