Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Multiplatform Experience
A Facilities Management client (janitorial, landscaping, pest control, etc.) was experiencing loss of revenue and vulnerability to financial liability caused by a broken ERP system. Franchisee's and customers did not have visibility into the contracted work being done and the corresponding finances.
A multi-platform solution that enables, empowers, and simplify the lives of franchise owners, customers and corporate employees.
This project led to a very large sales opportunity was created for both this client and future clients in the industry
Franchise owners and customers could now schedule work and mitigate issues with work completion
Franchise owners and customers could now manage their invoices more efficiently and accurately.
Service providers and contractors can now be held accountable for incomplete or missed work. Service reports are generated for users to review
"How fast can we have this?"
-Company CEO, after a design review
The new customer designs provides a seamless, self-service experience for managing accounts, tracking invoices, and making payments. With an intuitive design and full ADA/WCAG compliance, it ensures accessibility and ease of use for all users.
For franchise owners, the redesigns offers clearer financial statements, real-time updates on payment accruals, and enhanced transparency into services provided. The user-friendly interface simplifies daily tasks, helping franchisees manage their operations more efficiently while ensuring compliance with accessibility standards. These improvements create a key differentiator, elevating both customer satisfaction and franchise business operations.
The mobile app is designed to provide a seamless experience for service providers, enabling effortless documentation of services through geofencing, photo uploads, and real-time updates. With an intuitive interface and full ADA/WCAG compliance, the app enhances ease of use while ensuring accessibility for all users.
Service providers can quickly view their daily schedules and efficiently document completed tasks, increasing accountability and transparency. By streamlining these processes, the app helps the entire OpenWorks ecosystem maintain high service quality and ensure accurate billing, benefiting both customers and franchise owners.
Key deliverables were essential for illustrating to stakeholders how users would interact with the proposed designs. To ensure that the designs effectively addressed the client's business problems, I worked closely with the client throughout the process. This involved conducting targeted design sprints for both the Franchise and Customer portals, as well as the mobile app. As a result of the user research performed, using user personas, I created detailed journey maps, key user flows, and information architecture, all of which provided valuable insights into user behavior and needs. These artifacts guided the development of a solution that would simplify processes and improve transparency for franchise owners, customers, and corporate employees.
The goal of the user research was to uncover key workflows, user needs, priorities, and pain points related to the current processes in order to identify the digital enhancements necessary to meet user expectations. Along with conducting primary user research, I also leveraged business insights and process knowledge from other team members to ensure a holistic understanding of both user and organizational requirements. This comprehensive approach helped inform design decisions that directly addressed user challenges and aligned with business objectives.
Franchisee's need a clear picture of current loans and payment owed for work completd. Customers need direct insight into their invoices and payments due.
Franchisee's & customer need validation that work was completed to a high quality standard.
Franchisee's & customer need to be able to make and respond to new service request for when the unexpected comes up.
Franchisees need Clarity into potential prospects and pending sales as well as, customer payment status.
Previously unknown insights that Stakholders were unaware of that were unearthed during user research.
Franchisees need to be able to manage their inventory & have the ability to supply customer orders
Customers need quick access to contracted services and associated costs.
Franchisees want the ability to share insights, best practices, and ask questions with their peer.s
Customers need a high level summary of service provided for the month.
Challenges encountered over the course of this project and what I learned.
I knew the two types of main users, Franchise owners and Customers. What I didn't know was many customers are very large companies with customer contacts that sit very high up (VP, Director, C-Suite, etc.). This resulted in a lot of vague interview answers. The team and I quickly realized we needed to talk to customers who are onsite working with contractors and should have specified. Because time was limited, this gap went unfilled. We proposed it as a future enhancement in the backlog.
An assumption I made was that everyone knows what we mean when we say "Low-Fidelity Wireframe" right? In this instance the SOW specified low-fidelity designs, but the client was not made aware of what exactly this means. Lesson learned, make sure to clarify this and other design specific terms from the start.
Because I was trying to be a "friendly" consultant. I made the mistake of asking a C-suite executive if there was anything else they wanted to get out of the user research surveys. This person insisted on including questions that were not relevant. Lesson learned, be confident in the user research plan as designed and don't be afraid to push back on questionable asks, ever from a member of the C-Suite.
Because of the huge amount of qualitative user research I needed to involve some AI tooling to analyze transcripts and float specific insights to the fore. In this case, some AI white boarding tooling was not there yet, resulting in a lot of rework. I ended up with some summaries that contained hallucinations and made up information. Lesson learned, make sure you are using the right tools for the job.
