Express Onboarding for B2B Clients
SERVICE DESIGN | SYSTEM DESIGN | RESEARCH & ANALYSIS | FACILITATION |
UI/UX DESIGN | GRAPHIC DESIGN
Client:
Cognition
Industry:
IoT-led Innovation Company
Duration:
5 weeks
Tools used:
Facilitation, Miro, Figma, Zoom, Photoshop
Cognition was aiming to move from a high-touch to a low touch service model. The designed experience had to best exploit a new technology where their end-users would be educated about a set of benefits that are not yet fully understood.
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The solution also had to be articulated from a sector/ proposition that is only in its infancy and evolving constantly - Scalable
PROJECT BRIEF
APPROACH
Evaluation & research of existing proposition of Cognition.
Understanding technical & customer viewpoints.
Redesigning Cognition’s service according to research insights.
Research included carrying out interviews with Cognition’s stakeholders, deriving problem statements, brainstorming ideas and developing propositions.
A feasible concept was chosen, developed into a prototype, tested with stakeholders and refined into a final solution.
OUTCOME
A simple and streamlined version of the onboarding process for the customers and clients of the company.
The design solution aims to help the end-users adopt the service provided by Cognition speedily and implement it effectively within their businesses. It can be further scaled up using minimum time and effort.
About the client:
Cognition is a Dublin-based IoT-led analytics firm with a web-based platform called Cognition World. They provide IoT sensors to organisations to monitor their operations to allow them to optimise to an integrated estate and become more sustainable.
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Cognition remotely monitor range from SME food companies to multi-billion dollar manufacturing sites. Near real-time data is captured from a variety of wireless sensor types inside the businesses and Cognition apply their algorithms to the data to educate/alert managers when there is unusual activity in their operation – either reactively or proactively. Their clients include hotels, bakeries, hospitals, supermarkets, banks, farms, construction firms, NCAD, etc.
My Role in the Project:
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I used research methods to carry out primary & secondary research and interviews to understand the mechanism of the company and its processes.
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I also prepared ecosystem and stakeholder maps.
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I planned the in-studio presentation of our research and concept phases to our clients. I also explained the Service Design Blueprint we had prepared to map our concepts and gaps.
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I helped design the user experience of the new onboarding portal during the prototyping phase along with concepting the device box..
APPROACH FOLLOWED:
Research Phase:
My team was responsible for understanding the IoT company, their internal structure and the gaps in service. We had other teams who focused on understanding the clients/end-users, and the analysing the competitor landscape.
My team began with desk research followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews with the leaders and employees of the company. With the information collected we mapped out the internal structure of the company, hierarchy and business strategy. Along with this, we mapped out their service process from beginning to end, even customer support and exit strategy.
Similarly the other two teams researched on their topics and finally we joined forces by putting together all insights gathered to build an early service design blueprint.
Participant Boards
The blueprint, even though an early draft, brought a clear understanding of their current service, the gaps present and opportunities for improvement.
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Also, it helped us as a team to get on the same page as we were all tackling separate areas of research till then.
Early Blueprint
Company
Ecosystem Map
Empathy Map
The blueprint was supported by an Ecosystem Map populated with the stakeholders and value exchange involved. It captured all the key roles that have an influence on the customers, organisation and service environment.
Empathy maps were created to understand the motivations, concerns, and user experience of the stakeholders in relationship to the company.
Insights derived:
1.
End-customers felt capable to self install the monitoring devices in their buildings as they knew their sites very well.
2.
Onboarding process of new clients was a time-consuming process.
3.
The provided customer service was very high touch and required constant customer support from Cognition.
4.
There were difficulties in deciphering the poor quality photos received by the company which added to their workload.
Design Challenges:
By the end of research phase, after analysing and visualising all the data collected, 12 insights were derived and converted into 2 design challenges.
1.
How might we transform the onboarding process for Cognition's client companies into becoming more proactive such that required data can be gathered seamlessly, speedily and securely while the end-clients feel self-sufficient using the services.
2.
How might we remotely gather reliable data with minimum effort and maximum accuracy about the site to:
(a) enable the selection of current devices
(b) and that they will work smoothly.
Concept Phase:
In-person workshops were facilitated to brainstorm ideas that were further refined into final concepts.
Grouping of ideas into concepts that can be taken forward into Development phase.
THE OUTCOME:
The design solution comprises of 3 components:
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A redesigned Website
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Packaging of device boxes
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A New Digital Onboarding Experience
1. A Website that works hard.
It is built on the existing HTML site of the company, making it more impactful such that a potential client doesn’t have to leave the landing page to understand exactly what Cognition is and the value their service can bring to the business.
60 second ‘elevator pitch’ eg, how it works, the simplicity of acquisition shot in an engaging way.
The screens shared here form the first touchpoint and provide product and service information to website visitors and lead them to create an account with Cognition that can be taken forward.
2. Redesigning the package of the device boxes.
Reinforces the value proposition
Second touchpoint, that creates another opportunity to build a great customer experience.
Boxes that are simple and cheap to manufacture while at the same time effective. These boxes would have the Cognition branding and contain the monitoring devices accompanied by an installation guide for the end-clients.
Reinforces the Brand name
Installation guide
Builds on the existing dashboard framework
3. A New Digital Onboarding Experience
A streamlined onboarding process that promotes and enables self installation and a lower touch service.
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"Focus your free time on sales and building the business."
THE USER STORY:
A storyboard to quickly understand the user journey and experience.
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The end client is looking for a way to monitor the energy consumption in their business.
While searching online, they come across Cognition website.
Registers for Cognition World services through the website.
Calls up the customer care to find out more.
Selects the devices that need to be monitored and adds details.
Logs into their account and accesses the dashboard.
Reads the instructions on how to take decent pictures of different areas in the building.
Uses the camera and takes good quality pictures.
Uploads the photos on the portal. Gets approval from Cognition on the quality. The order for devices gets confirmed.
Notification is received via email and SMS.
The box contains the devices, bubble-wrapped and secure along with an instruction guide for installation.
Receives the re-branded box with IoT devices via post
Uses the guide and the tutorials on the portal, and installs the devices accordingly.
Sensors are installed and activated.
The portal dashboard shows data of the sensors activated. This way, the user can monitor the energy consumption actively.
Finally, customer satisfaction and expected outcomes.
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
Feedback from Cognition Team
The design solution was very well received and valued by the Cognition team mainly because it can be easily implemented in short term with minimum effort.
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The website has strong Call to Action elements.
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There is clarity in the flow of the Onboarding portal.
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Clean and sleek user experience.
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Easy to follow and understand
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Package design of the boxes is on point.
Opportunities
The concept requires further development in terms of:
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User Testing of prototypes
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Involving SME's and use their expertise to improve the service further
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Stakeholder feedback
Testimonial:
"The team did a great job! They used service design thinking efficiently and gave us fantastic, tangible ideas to implement into our business model. It was also a really interesting co-designing experience for my team! Keep up the good work!"
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-- Thomas D. McGrath, CEO, Cognition.
"I had a fantastic time working with Sindhu and her team! The co-creation of solutions was such a fresh experience. They looked at the problem from different perspectives and came up with solutions that answered more than one touchpoint of the business problem. Overall, it was a superb project!"
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-- Rishiom Shah, Head of Data Management, Cognition.