Untangling the Authentication Experience to Improve UX
A 140,000-strong army of instructors used to log in to Les Mills’ digital properties in different ways, based on whether they were accessing the fitness club, equipment products, and so on. Each required completely different authentication techniques and password combinations, creating friction for the users. Les Mills found that using Salesforce-based authentication in their natively built app didn’t provide adaptability for multiple authentication use cases, and they wanted to reduce complexity for themselves and their users, “We became difficult to do business with - we had to change,” Naulls explains.
To simplify the complexity, Les Mills honed in on the customer perspective. “We are looking at how our customers interact with us. We are now fully SaaS and beyond technical digital transformation, so we need to shift our focus to the customer experience,” says Naulls.
In selecting user-friendly authentication, Les Mills had already discovered Auth0’s functionality for use in a small project in a different business unit. But Les Mills wanted more, taking the full customer experience into account starting from login. Auth0 offered the ability to simplify authentication, customize login, and be able to take advantage of additional functionality, including authorization.
They needed a unified solution that would enable backend products to pass attributes between them to enable, for example, more personalized end-user experiences. Auth0 could do all of these things, including both powering access to the Les Mills proprietary app, which natively houses all product information, content, workout programs, music, and digital rights on the user’s device, and enabling access to self-service portals that let users manage their accounts and make appointments and let business partners access products to which they subscribe.
“Auth0 was really easy to implement, with the project running for about three months.”

Anthony NaullsHead of Technology