The Global Data Quality IT Company delivers Data Management and Service solutions to retailers, public sector and financial insititutions.

During Q3 2019, after an analysis of the sale and customer satisfaction performances, consultant and product management teams assumed that the Company was losing a significant percentage of renewals as a result of a poor customer and user experience. It was assumed that a self-service experience would have improved the onboarding process and the overall user experience. To validate these assumptions and recommend a solution they’ve engaged me as UX Lead to undertake the most appropriate actions.

Understanding stakeholders, prospects and leads

To gather existing knowledge about users and their typical journeys I’ve initially suggested, plan and facilitated a series of workshops with key internal stakeholders. A total of 7 people have participated among Product Managers and Consultants:

• Two empathy mapping workshops, during which we have identified typical users, their roles, tasks and frustrations. For Public and Retail sectors. Following the workshop outcomes analysis, I’ve identified two key user types/personas, their goals and expectations: a decision maker,  representing prospects, and a system administrator as first-time users.
• Two experience mapping workshops, to highlight the current journey the two selected personas have to go through to meet their goals. For each step we have identified negative, neutral and positive experiences.

While initially it was believed that the main pain-points of the customer lifecycle occured during the onboarding phase, from the internal discovery emerged gaps and opportunities since the early stages of the customer journey.

Validating initial assumptions with user research

To validate these findings, I’ve suggested, planned and conducted user interviews with real client decision makers and system administrators. I’ve then engaged the product manager to run a competitive research and analysis to highlight potential market opportunities.

As a result of the discovery phase, I’ve created the two stakeholders profile, and validated the assumptions.

The product conceptual design: improving the experience

Following the result of the discovery phase we’ve conceptualised the potential solution: a customer facing portal to drive the prospect through the exploration phase and to which at due time the system administrator is also given access.

I’ve designed the system/user conceptual journey with each phase related epics, then engaged the technical architects for a first technical analysis.

In short terms, the portal will enable the decision maker to find the relevant information and get connected with the right team, raise requests and exchange files; once the deal is done and the product is available the system administrator is invited to access the portal administrator area and manage all required actions to set the system, find the technical and user documentation and activate business users. During the next phases of the customer lifecylce, the portal will be used as a platform to pull news, events, and engage the client until the renewal day.

This solution is believed will provide the external stakeholders a smooth and consistent experience by accessing all they need from one platform, while enable the internal teams to quickly respond their prospects/users requests and track their activity to dynamically pull the most relevant content.

Currently the project is moved to a internal stakeholders wider engagement phase to ensure the necessary support for the success of the solution. Next steps include connect existing product teams, gathering content requirements, creating a prototype to submit internal stakeholders and users for a series of design/validation iterations.

Conclusion and results

• Since the initial steps, I’ve engaged internal stakeholders to collaborate and improved the internal alignement on knowledge, needs and potential solution.
• Then by suggesting the most appropriate discovery activities I’ve been able to move away from the internal opinion-based assumptions to real users evidence-based validation.
• Finally, the conceptual design has been successfully used to communicate the solution from the user perspective and start an internal discussion around viability and faisability.
• In conclusion, a user-centric approach has been adopted since early stages enabling business and technical teams to consider a product first from those who will use it.

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