Offer Configurator
A tablet tool for Android that guides the conversation in the store in between the company’s salesforce and its residential customers.
Concept
INFORMED DECISION MAKING
A digital sales tool designed with a clear focus on the customer, containing all the relevant information of the company’s portfolio for the customer to make an informed purchasing decision.
From the customers perspective, the Offer Configurator helps them better understand the products. From the vendors perspective, it allows them to explain the products in a different way.
Methodology
- Kick-off workshop
- Problem map
- Challenge map
- Challenge Board
- Key questions
- Pre-mortem analysis
- Benchmarking
- Desktop research
- Safaris
- Shadowings
- Task Analysis
- Diary Studies
- Contextual and in-depth interviews
- Insight cards
- Scenarios
- Personas
- Empathy maps
- Co-creation workshops
- Storyboard
- Most Valuable Proposition
- Cross Polination
- Decision matrix
- Value matrix
- Process Mapping
- Input and Output Mapping
- Sketching
- Wireframes
- Interactive low, medium and high-fi prototypes
- Heuristic Analysis
- Role play
- Wizard of Oz tests
- Micro-usability tests
- Pilot
- Surveys
- Usage Analytics and metrics
Team
- 3 UX Designers
- 2 UI Designer
Duration
6 months
Budget
High
1. Framing the problem
Why does the queue in this store always takes so long?
Original problem:
The Product Recommender, a tedious, bad-looking, obsolete ugly named software that vendors used in their desktop computers to recommend products to customers.
Big-picture problems:
A non-intuitive interaction raised an already high Average Handling Time. A huge amount of complaints from vendors who only used it when forced to do so. A key trigger to the low CSI ratings of the stores' experience.
Initial challenge:
Redesign (and rename XD) the existing software.
2. INSPECTING THE ARTIFACT
The existing software failed in almost every aspect of the Heuristic Analysis we conducted, with special severity in information design, architecture, navigation and concept. And after studying the constraints and limitations of the current technology for the requested redesign we decided to take some time and reconsider things.
3. EXPLORING THE STORES
An extensive fieldwork exploration opened our eyes to much bigger problems -like the lack of trust of our customers in the store vendors- and needs of the everyday life of the company’s stores. Needs that could be addressed by a newer version of The Product Recommender if we thought out of the box. For example, this insight made us later discard the possibility of a self-managed digital tool.
Insight: Customers reject self-management options while in the store because “for that they have the company’s website”.
“I come to the store to speak to a vendor, not to be left alone with a screen”
Verbatim
The customers wanted:
- to reflect on their current use of telecommunication
- to identify and assess their telecommunication needs
- simpler and clearer information about the company’s portfolio
- some level of customization
- ...
The Sales Salesforce needed:
- an agile repository of the portfolio’s details
- some guidance for the way to sell such a big and complicated portfolio
- to assess the customer’s technological needs
- …
4. Reframing the project
We abandoned the idea of redesigning the existing software and we started a whole new tool from scratch that would better address our user’s needs: vendors’ and customers’ .
But why design a tool for either only the vendor or only the customer? Why not create an artifact thought to be used by both of them at the same time, in equal terms, in a shared interaction?
Achievement: Spoiler alert! This proposed shared human-machine-human interaction was responsible for the latter success of this sales tool.
5. Imagining a new tool
Personas
We assembled all possible users into 5 personas (with a different knowledge of technology): 3 customer personas and 2 vendor personas.
Scenarios
We represented the user needs into design ideas by means of a collection of problem, value, and full scale task scenarios.
STORYBOARD
We also storyboard and, among other things, it helped us reflect on the space where the digital tool was going to be used. In particular, we considered how the physical barriers (counters, desks, desktop computer, etc.) would affect the interaction and, therefore, considered the possibility of creating an app to be used in tablets.
6. Prototyping
We thought it best to design a step by step experience that would make the comprehension for the user easier:
- starting by identifying the customer’s current telecommunication consumption and habits;
- followed by an assessment of near future changes in these communication needs;
- to then see a filtered selection of alternative communication packages matching the marked communication needs;
- and finally decide on the most suitable option, with space for upgrading.
7. The Pilot
After several iterations of low and medium fidelity prototypes with their related tests, we conducted a Pilot with a high fidelity prototype that helped us fine-tune the design of our tool. For example, we discovered the user need of being able to “take the information home to think about it”.
“Could you write this down for me so I can show it to my husband this evening?”
Verbatim
Learning: This point of the project was an interesting exercise of how to make the digital and physical world coexist, interact and not interfere with each other.
8. Final touches
In reaction to the findings of the pilot, we added to our artifact the functionality of creating a Take Away Offer, a document to be printed and/or sent my email.
Contribution: Defining the module logic for this mix and match proved to be a complex and exciting exercise that I specially contributed to. At last, we managed to fit in an A4 all the possible product combinations.
The Offer Configurator and Take Away Offer were successfully implemented nation-wide in the company’s stores.
Achievement: We are proud that the digital tool we designed reached the projects objectives, considering the Average Handling Time and other monitored KPI’s.
KEY SCREENS - KEY FEATURES
Agile
A digital tool that shop assistants value very positively and find easier and faster than the previous one. A comfortable and useful sales tool that brings them closer to the customer.
Vendor Loggin / Home Screen.
Contribution: One of my best contribution to the project was the exercise of simplifying the presentation of the product portfolio to strengthen the customer’s understanding.
Product Selector.
Achievement: The way the interaction was conceived made customers feel they were taking control of the situation, of the conversation with the salesperson. This was a complete surprise and key to the success of the Offer Configurator.
Product Selector.
Personalization
The way we designed the Offer Configurator and its child, the Take Away Offer, gave the customer a perception of personalization. Even if there was no customization at all, we managed to delivered a personalized experience by letting the customer choose in between the most suitable options in an innovative way.
Customer Form.
Attractive
We succeed in designing an attractive tool that gave the store experience a touch of “quality and sophistication”, in words of the interviewed customers.
Confirmation Screen.
Transparent
With the Take Away Offer we managed to strengthen the customer’s trust in our company. Providing a personalized offer in written format indicated seriousness and professionalism, reinforced when sent via e-mail.
