Decline by Complexity
During my first six months in my new role, I focused on understanding the intricacies of my company's SaaS offerings. It quickly became apparent that our organisation lacked a holistic view of our product landscape, characterised by multiple applications featuring duplicate features, fragmented customer instances, and inconsistent user experiences. To address these challenges, I conducted extensive user research, blending desk research with online face-to-face interviews. This provided invaluable insights into our customers' experiences and the competitive landscape.​​
Simultaneously, I crafted a visual map to illustrate the current ecosystem to my senior leadership team. This visualisation, along with a carefully crafted problem statement, sparked discussions around streamlining our offerings and enhancing user satisfaction.
Problem statement...
Our company is facing a decline in customer retention rates due to the complexity of our application ecosystem. The extensive range of applications presents a significant challenge for customers, hindering their ability to navigate and complete tasks efficiently. Inconsistencies in visual interfaces and operational processes exacerbate the issue, leading to customer dissatisfaction and attrition. Despite offering essential features, the lack of seamless integration between applications diminishes the overall user experience, prompting customers to seek alternatives.
First draft organisation application map by business unit
Discovery & empathy...
The senior leadership team's initial reaction was mixed. While they acknowledged the value of the visual map in uncovering duplication and customer navigation challenges, they were taken aback by the sheer complexity of our offerings when laid out in this manner. The realisation dawned that many of our applications were deeply integrated into our customers' workflows, posing significant hurdles to migration. Moreover, the highly customised nature of these applications, coupled with siloed engineering teams, presented additional barriers to consolidation.
In response, the decision was made to explore an umbrella approach to provide the semblance of a unified experience without completely overhauling existing applications. I was tasked with reverse engineering the map, focusing on consolidating services and features within the SWS business unit.
Simultaneously, there was an urgent focus on rebuilding the current communication application due to expiring contracts. The immediate reflex was to opt for a quick fix: re-skin the legacy application and rebuild the necessary back-end functionality. However, I saw this as more than just a short-term solution; it was an opportunity to craft a story around the consolidation of our communication offering.
As discussions continued, I realised the importance of considering the broader implications and potential gaps in my understanding. I again initiated research with both internal and customer stakeholders to comprehensively map the current state and develop a future concept.
Rather than simply patching up the existing applications, I envisioned a strategy to streamline our communication landscape, offering enhanced value to both our company and our customers and designed a concept for a structure that would allow scalability. To ensure wider support and buy-in for this initiative, I recognised the need to refine my communication strategy and engage stakeholders at all levels effectively.
Co-design workshop with our top 5 EMEA customers
Deeper understanding...
My goal encompassed gaining deep insights into our customers' navigation challenges and communication barriers. I aimed to understand their workflows, anticipate feature integration with their processes, and assess interface preferences and satisfaction levels. Ultimately, I sought actionable feedback for enhancing their experience.
Specifically, I aimed to address the following with our customers:
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Navigation Challenges: Pinpointing hurdles in navigating between applications and identifying pain points from inconsistent interfaces or workflows.
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Task Completion Issues: Understanding challenges users face in completing tasks efficiently and uncovering frustrations from the fragmented ecosystem.
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Feature Discoverability: Assessing how easily users find and use features across applications.
Internally, I focused on:
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Current Communication Features: Identifying existing communication features
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Duplication: Uncovering duplicated features
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Product Ownership: Determining ownership of products
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Deployment Process: Understanding how products are deployed
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Implementation Time: Investigate average implementation times
What I undertook...
Internal Interviews: I engaged in discussions with internal colleagues to bridge any gaps in my ecosystem map. These conversations also shed light on opportunities for streamlining both application functionalities and administrative processes, from implementation and deployment to post-deployment support.
External Interviews: In the absence of dedicated research resources, I orchestrated and carried out interviews using Userzoom. These interviews aimed to uncover pain points experienced by frontline workers in retail environments, with a particular focus on communication challenges.
User Journey Mapping & Ideation Workshop: Organized an interactive co-design workshop attended by representatives from our top five EMEA customers. Together, we mapped out user journeys to pinpoint recurring pain points and collaboratively brainstormed potential solutions.
Competitor Analysis: Executed a comprehensive analysis encompassing both direct and indirect competitors to gain insights into industry trends, product offerings, and areas of potential differentiation.
Key insights...
From customers:
Overload: Users grapple with the burdensome task of juggling multiple applications for their daily workflows. The absence of a unified sign-on solution and universal user management amplifies this challenge. Moreover, the sheer volume of applications compounds the issue, leaving users overwhelmed and struggling to discern each app's purpose.
Inconsistency: Users express frustration with the disparate visual designs and interaction experiences across applications. This lack of consistency adds confusion and impedes their ability to navigate efficiently.
Non-Intuitive UI: The user interface lacks intuitiveness, failing to align with users' mental models and expectations. Unclear content hierarchy and delivery further exacerbate user difficulties, resulting in delays and inefficiencies - hard to do work!.
From internal stakeholders:
Duplicate Functionality: Numerous instances of duplicated functionality exist across applications and business units, leading to inefficiencies and inconsistencies in the user experience.
Complexity: Our frontline workers in retail were faced with a staggering array of 58 applications at their disposal. While many applications supported a single feature, they were developed as standalone entities, resulting in a fragmented user experience.
Compounding the issue, we lacked unified administration tools for setup and user management, and the absence of a single sign-in capability made navigation cumbersome. To add to the challenge, each application had its own distinct user interface and interaction patterns, turning every task into a learning curve for our users.
Stretched Resource: The multitude of applications, custom instances, product teams, implementation teams, and training needs impose a significant burden on our organization's resources. This abundance not only complicates maintenance and bug fixing but also poses challenges in ensuring consistency in the customer experience across different users.
Fragmented Updates: Custom instances of applications result in staggered bug fixes, feature releases, and updates for customers, leading to inconsistent experiences and prolonged setup and training processes.
Consolidation Opportunities: There are clear opportunities to consolidate features and functionality into a unified service offering. For instance, consolidating multiple chat and voice calling apps into a comprehensive communication experience would simplify user interactions and improve efficiency.
Flexible and Future-Proof: Developing a single, flexible application with a scalable navigation system presents a feasible solution. This approach supports modular licensing models, enabling customised experiences based on user preferences and subscription plans. The streamlined application design ensures adaptability and scalability, aligning with evolving user needs.
Following my extensive research efforts, I meticulously updated the ecosystem map to encompass all the insights gleaned from both customers and internal stakeholders. Leveraging these valuable insights, I organized the existing features across applications into distinct clusters such as communications, tasks, and administration.
My primary goal now was to streamline the disparate features into a coherent and meaningful structure, with the overarching aim of introducing new modules within a unified, cohesive application. This initiative also entailed the creation of a singular administration and setup portal, facilitating seamless access to all features through a unified user management system and single sign-on functionality.
Moreover, I introduced an innovative concept: tagging. This concept seamlessly integrates people, communications, tasks, devices, licenses, locations, and hierarchies. It's complemented by an ecosystem-wide search and notification capability. This approach ensures that every user receives and visualizes the pertinent information necessary to accomplish their tasks efficiently and effectively.
New service structure concept - Simplified discovery
Summary...
When I presented the new concept to the senior leadership team, their response was a blend of excitement and skepticism. While they acknowledged the potential value of the new model, which aligned with our proposed sales strategies, they also recognised the significant effort required for implementation—a departure from the quick fixe culture they were accustomed to. Additionally, with the urgent need to rebuild our communication tool, resources were stretched thin, making it challenging to deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) on time.
There were concerns that consolidating into a single application might overwhelm users with features, considering the current diversity across applications. Moreover, the lack of alignment and consistency in code and team workflows posed significant challenges to the transition. Surprisingly, there was reluctance to engage with customers about future migrations to avoid premature demands, and fears that simplifying the offering could impact revenue generated from extensive training and setup services.
Despite these challenges, the initiative achieved notable successes:
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Advancing the company's strategic thinking by 10 months
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Gained a comprehensive understanding of our organisation wide services
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Merged seven communication applications into a single tool
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Consolidated six administration applications into a unified setup and user management portal
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Championed the strategic integration of task management features into our new communications solution, resulting in the phased retirement of multiple applications
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Being assigned the task of defining universal search and notifications for communications and task management
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Launched an exploration into the potential synergy between our SaaS team and other business units, including AI, Voice, and camera teams. The goal is to align their features and roadmaps with our future UX vision, fostering collaboration across diverse domains.
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Launched a new initiative to envision an AI/Voice-first OS to revolutionise customer workflows and navigation through our services