Redefining The Roadside Assistance
Background
A leading provider of roadside assistance aimed to overhaul their digital customer experience. While they had a digital presence, it fell short on multiple fronts—business, technical, and user satisfaction. Our task: reinvent a user-centric roadside assistance platform for New Zealand, with a separate firm addressing the employee experience.
Challenges
Intending to present their solution to car dealerships, automotive brands, and insurance companies, our design had to be multifaceted.
Scalability was paramount.
Needed a blend of dependability and user-friendliness.
A dual focus on digital efficiency and human connection.
Diving Deep: Comprehensive Research
Our initial dive into the project was marked by an extensive industry and market research phase. By juxtaposing local and international solutions, we could derive trends, success patterns, and prevalent pain points. Moreover, a close examination of user reviews on existing platforms further sharpened our understanding.
Review Scope:
Comparative analysis of local and international solutions.
Feedback Analysis:
Scrutinized user reviews on existing platforms to identify prevalent pain points.
Forward-Looking Analysis:
Examined related industries, identifying technological advancements and emerging user preferences.
Key Insights:
Users are clamoring for timely and transparent service updates.
A clear preference was noted for platforms that offer a harmonious blend of digital and human interactions.
Service inconsistency was a recurrent grievance, highlighting a significant industry challenge.
Listening to the Users: Structured Interviews
To bridge the digital shortfall, understanding the end-user became paramount. This understanding was sought through structured interviews spanning a diverse demographic spectrum from New Zealand.
User Interviews Process & Insights:
Demographic Diversity: Participants spanned a wide demographic spectrum, covering various age groups, affiliations to different service providers, and past experiences with varying types of roadside incidents.
Remote Execution: Utilizing the Askable platform for recruitment, we conducted interviews remotely via MS Teams, ensuring a seamless and efficient process.
Primary Focus: We sought to understand user experiences during and post-roadside incidents.
Pertinent Findings:
There's a palpable disjoint in the user experience across various providers in New Zealand.
Many customers, having encountered multiple incidents, voiced that the service procedure varied with each request.
Roadside incidents inherently induce stress. Users emphasized their desire for a guided experience, which entails timely updates, relevant contextual information, and post-service care.
During these distressing moments, the comforting "human touch" of call operators was particularly appreciated. Many felt that current digital solutions were either too rigid or outright dysfunctional.
A resounding sentiment emerged: if digital is the way forward, it must be unwaveringly reliable.
Crafting the Ideal Digital Journey
With insights in hand, we meticulously designed a user-centric journey. Inspired by successful apps in the delivery and ride-hailing domain, we conceived a journey segmented into 8 distinct modules.
Login:
Purpose: Swiftly identify customer.
Action: Users input their car registration and contact details.
Why It's Important: Immediate identification accelerates the assistance process.
Verification:
Purpose: Authenticity check.
Action: System validates the input data to confirm existing customer status.
Why It's Important: It ensures genuine requests and aids in service personalization.
Service Selection:
Purpose: Understanding user needs.
Action: Users specify the nature of their roadside incident.
Why It's Important: Tailored service provision based on specific needs.
Location Selection:
Purpose: Precise service dispatch.
Action: Users either confirm their GPS-identified location or input it manually.
Why It's Important: Accurate location data guarantees quicker response times.
Job Details:
Purpose: User confirmation.
Action: Users review and approve the details entered.
Why It's Important: Offers users a final review, ensuring that their requirements are correctly logged.
Allocating Service Provider:
Purpose: Keeping users informed.
Action: Users receive a real-time update on their service provider's allocation.
Why It's Important: Reinforces the notion that assistance is en route.
Service Provider Tracking:
Purpose: Real-time tracking.
Action: Users can monitor the service provider's location, get ETA, and establish communication if needed.
Why It's Important: Ensures transparency and allows users to prepare for the provider's arrival.
Job Receipt:
Purpose: Service completion and feedback.
Action: Post-service, users receive a detailed receipt, maintenance tips, actionable next steps, and a platform to share their feedback.
Why It's Important: Provides users with a comprehensive service summary and gathers feedback for continual improvement.
Design: From Blueprint to Reality
Transitioning from a concept to tangible design elements, our initial wireframes evolved into high-fidelity screens. Also, understanding our diverse clientele, a flexible white-label design system emerged using Material UI as a foundation.
Log in Screen
Allows users to input their details
Give users safety tips
Gives users the option to call an operator if desired
Customer Information Confirmation
Allows users verify their information before continuing to the next steps
Service Selection
Allows users to choose which service they need
A Stepper was introduced to keep users informed on which part of the process they’re at and how many step are remaining
Incident Details
Allows users to add additional information pertaining to the incident
Location Selection
Allows users to select their location via GPS or manually input their location
Additional notes allows users to add location information (e.g. in the carpark on level 3)
Provider Tracking
Allows users view where the service provider is and their estimated time of arrival.
Gives users tip/advice on what to do while waiting for the service to arrive
Job Complete
Gives the user a confirmation that the job has been completed
Gives the user tips on how to care for their vehicle to reduce repeated incidents (If applicable)
Incorporates a feedback form to ensure continuous improvements to the services provided
User Validation: The Ultimate Test
But what's a design without its users' stamp of approval? Our solution underwent rigorous remote usability testing and A/B testing to ensure it resonated with the end-users. The feedback was promising with users lauding its simplicity and efficiency. However, they also pointed out areas for refinement.
Following the comprehensive usability and A/B testing phases, we were equipped with a plethora of invaluable insights. These tests not only highlighted areas of our product that excelled but also pinpointed where our users encountered friction or confusion. Recognizing the imperative nature of these findings, we promptly integrated this list of improvements into our product backlog.
But we didn't just add them; we meticulously prioritized each item, ensuring the most impactful changes, those directly influencing user satisfaction and our product's core functionality, would be addressed foremost. This systematic approach facilitates the integration of these improvements during subsequent sprints.
Additionally, by merging these insights into our agile development cycle, we ensure that the user feedback is continuously woven into our product evolution.
Conclusion
In our journey to revamp the digital experience for a leading roadside assistance provider, we delved deep into the intricacies of user behavior, preferences, and pain points, specifically within the New Zealand market. Through rigorous industry research, expansive user interviews, and a holistic design process, we unearthed and addressed discrepancies in the previous system, ensuring our solution not only resonated with users but surpassed their expectations.
Furthermore, the adaptive nature of our white-label design system, inspired by the principles of Material UI, ensures scalability across multiple companies, showcasing the solution's potential for wider applicability. The results from our usability and A/B tests underscored the product's efficacy, with an overwhelming majority expressing their inclination to use the revamped system.
This case study is a testament to the power of marrying data-driven insights with empathetic user-centric design. By prioritizing user feedback and continuously iterating based on real-world testing, we have forged a solution that genuinely aids users in moments of distress, emphasizing both the human touch and the advantages of digital precision. As we reflect on this project, it stands as a beacon for our commitment to excellence, user satisfaction, and the relentless pursuit of innovation in the realm of user experience.