OVERVIEW
Acosta is a sales and marketing company for consumer packaged goods that employs over 30,000 sales reps. I worked with Acosta and teamed up with two other UX designers to redesign Acosta’s grocery store app. The existing app enables sales reps to go into grocery stores and check on inventory for large clients like Kraft or Procter & Gamble. A sales rep is responsible for everything from updating a Kraft mac n’ cheese display to making sure the milk is on the right shelf.
THE ASK
Our mission was to generate more revenue for Acosta’s clients by making a sales rep’s job more efficient.
Our final deliverable: 3 different user flows presented in lo-fidelity wireframes
My role
I was the product manager and lead design strategist for the team.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
The first step in my process was to do a thorough analysis of Acosta’s business model and understand their goals and expectations for our mission. After planning my team’s timeline for the project and setting daily benchmarks, it was time to solve some complex problems.
Understanding the current Pain Points
The existing app can be broken down into three sections. Before sales reps enter the store they receive information from the client in the form of questions. This gets passed from the top down through a team lead and then to sales reps. The next phase happens when the sales rep enters the grocery stores they've been assigned to. During this step, the sales uses the app to answer specific questions about the inventory on the shelves. Finally, the sales rep leaves the store after they've completed their tasks for the day.
Section 1 Pain Points:
a.) Difficult to schedule calls
b.) Communication confusion (switching between different apps to communicate)
Section 2 Pain Points:
a.) Questions are out of order leading to sales reps wandering around the store aimlessly trying to locate specific products on the shelves
b.) It's too much work to go above and beyond if they see something that needs to be fixed on a shelf but that isn't listed in the tablet app.
c.) No incentive to go above and beyond and complete their own intervention within a store
Section 3 Pain Points:
a.) No feedback or motivation from team leads
b.) Too many emails flooding the sales reps' inbox
JOURNEY MAP
Synthesize existing research
Acosta provided my team with prior research they had completed in the field. We had several research documents that we synthesized as a team with affinity mapping. We also completed a detailed journey map to understand all of the pain points a sales rep encounters using the app. Our main findings were that sales reps have trouble locating groceries in the store and there were confusing icons and features in the existing app.
INSIGHTS
Redundant questions
Trouble finding products
Motivating Retail Associates
Confusing icons & features
Feature prioritization
I led a meeting on feature prioritization followed by a design studio so that we could generate ideas on how to solve the problem. Next, I divided the design work amongst the team, and we started creating lo-fi wireframes. The old app was on a tablet and we made a decision to redesign the app on a phone.
Design PIVOT
At this point in the process had the opportunity to interact with the existing app and see a sales rep in action. After speaking with the sales rep it became apparent that she loved using a tablet to do her job. She was worried that switching to a phone would slow down her productivity and other sales reps in the field would not like to make such a drastic change.
Field research: My team and I observing a sales rep in action at the Safeway grocery store.
In the end, we empathized with our users and pivoted from designing for a phone to a tablet. Our goal was to make the necessary changes to the app without alienating our sales reps that will be using it. So moving forward we decided the most creative solution would be to improve the things that needed to be updated in the current app while keeping the familiarity of the tablet. The Acosta team felt the phone was better and so we experienced some pushback from our client. It was my job to communicate why designing for a tablet was the smartest business decision.
WIREFRAMES: How a sales rep schedules a call
WIREFRAMES: How a sales rep answers questions from clients
