Digital transformation for an automotive brand in the UAE
2022 - 2023
1 year
NDA
About client
A family-owned and run business based in the UAE needed assistance to digitally transform their business. They had an app, which was specifically designed for automotive customers and car owners. The main goal for the client was to create a centric seamless digital experience for the entire customer lifecycle for the app users. This meant connecting and automating all three of their automotive brands and services (sales and service) into a single, user-friendly, and intuitive app.
Business challenge
A traditional business with no digital presence, possessed minimal knowledge of customer needs. The app had an outdated UI, badly built user journeys, wasn't updated in a long time and had very few active users.
The client aimed to address the following key objectives:
🎯 Enhance customer app's adoption rates.
🎯 Generate new leads through the app.
🎯 Boost customer retention.
🎯 Reduce operational costs, including call centre workloads.
🎯 Automate and digitise sales and car service processes.
Approach
✨ Conducted 5 stakeholder workshops involving key business teams (sales, service, CX, IT, marketing) to comprehend challenges, gather requirements, establish outcomes and success criteria, and identify assumptions and constraints.
✨ Analysed existing data sources, including customer feedback, app reviews, and available analytics.
✨ Examined processes, digital products, and Voice of Customer (VOC) data from similar automotive dealers.
✨ Engaged in field research by visiting service centres and sales showrooms, gathering insights on internal processes and customer experiences from sales representatives and service advisors.
✨ Facilitated focus groups with current customers (mix of both app users and non-users) and prospects.
✨ Conducted qualitative data analysis to distill insights.
✨ Based on the use research data, I updated a feature roadmap that was developed before the project began (more on it in the “Learnings” section below).
✨ Designed Information Architecture (IA) and navigation, with iterative tree testing for improvement.
✨ Mapped out main user flows and created high-fidelity wireframes.
✨ Conducted seven feasibility workshops in collaboration with developers to ensure the design was technically viable.
✨ Planned and executed usability testing with both app users and non-app users, refining wireframes based on findings and qualitative feedback.
✨ Handed over the wireframes to UI design.
✨ Developed an interactive prototype and annotated all interactions for developers for a smoother hand-off.
Lessons
💡 Evaluate the client's UX maturity early in the process; if it is lacking, allocate time to explain the design process, steps, deliverables, and the rationale behind design decisions.
💡 User research insights should drive the roadmap, while considering overarching business goals.
💡 Dive deeper into business processes and understand internal system limitations (e.g., Oracle, Salesforce). Perform business process mapping to gain a comprehensive understanding of the organisation's operations.
💡 Identify and map stakeholders to ascertain decision-makers within the project.
💡 Conduct desk research to enhance domain knowledge before engaging in focus groups.
💡 Scrutinise participant selection during recruitment, ensuring articulate communication, especially in cases where English is not the first language.
💡 Develop prototypes with a high-fidelity interaction level to closely resemble the real-life application, promoting more realistic feedback during usability testing.
