THE PROBLEM
Mobile detailing companies do not have an app that provides them all the digital tools to help them find success in the detailing space.
The current trend of the tech industry has shifted towards convenience and accessibility, which is something the mobile detailing industry currently lacks. This sparked a question: how can we connect detailers and users to book and connect in a quick and remote fashion?
THE SOLUTION
A mobile detailing app that gives detailers their own personal booking websites and connects them with new clients in an all-in-one app.
Meet Detail Connect
Detailers Connect is an app that connect users to local detailers, where they can book directly on the Detail Connect app. This is done completely remotely and all our detailers go to their clients' locations.
Detail Connect Pro
Detailers Connect Pro is our subscription service that gives detailers access to a CRM (Client Resource Management) where they can add clients, add personal bookings, and access their personal booking website.
MY ROLE
I spearheaded the redesign of our personal booking website feature and our updated analytics page, both included in our big update for Detail Connect Pro members.
Their personal links allowed clients to book remotely through the web in less than five minutes. Additionally, I designed the subscription service page where detailers choose their plan and subscribe. Due to my NDA, I cannot disclose all the features that are in development for Detail Connect Pro.
OUR GOALS
SUBSCRIPTION SCREEN
Building trust with our detailers…
There were two aspects that were most important for us to display: app pages of our key features and transparent pricing. Our initial layouts consisted of just text with some minor graphics that did not showcase our app pages. From the feedback of our detailers, they enjoyed seeing a glimpse of what they would be purchasing, so we decided to incorporate our app pages at the forefront of our design.
PERSONAL WEBSITE FLOW
We needed a flow that made was cohesive with our app.
Our current booking process entails these steps:
Adding your vehicle and its information
Selecting the service and add-ons you want for your vehicle
Choosing the date and time of the service
Confirming your address or adding your address
USER STORIES
Shareability and convenience helps our detailer's stay organized.
We needed to understand the pain points of our detailers when either using a different CRM or no CRM at all..
As a detailer, I want to be able to share my link to other clients or on my social media accounts.
As a detailer, I want to preview my link to ensure all of my services are displayed properly.
As a detailer, I want bookings from my website to automatically store onto my CRM calendar.
Detailers needed potential virality, with a system that could withhold an influx of clients. They wanted their website to serve as just a method of booking and connect seamlessly to their CRM.
Managing their websites…
Our detailers needed a space in the app to access their link and share it with their clients. The original iteration of this page was created long before I received the project. What did I do to improve it?
We decided to shift the focus of the page from the company to the QR code along with its link, so that detailers could either use the QR code or their link to share with their clients. This had positive reception with the detailers, many stating that it was simple and effective at it's purpose.
DETAILER'S ANALYTICS
Detailer's wanted an in-depth breakdown of their businesses.
We previously had an analytics page that displayed these statistics:
Not only did we want to add more practical statistics for the detailers, we also wanted more dynamic data visualizations. This presented multiple challenges because it was a mixture of good UI design and intuitive information visualization.
THE CHALLENGES
Information visualizations are used for analysis and presentation.
Data should not simply be displayed in the best looking format there is, but rather displayed in a manner that helps the audience understand the data better.
“A graphic display has many purposes but it achieves its highest value when it forces us to see what we were not expecting.”
Howard Wainer
Deciding what information was important to the detailers deemed more difficult than I anticipated. Because I have experience with data visualizations, I thought mapping data to a visual language would be easy. After looking at my screen for what felt like hours, I knew I needed more opinions.
USER STORIES
We asked our detailers what they wanted out of an analytics page.
This brought up the question, how do detailers want out of an analytics page and what do they need to monitor their growth? We needed outside perspective, so we compiled user stories to find the answers we were looking for.
As a detailer, I want to view the progression of my company over the course of a few years.
As a detailer, I want to see the popularity of each of my services and the income they bring in.
As a detailer, I want to see how much Detail Connect contributed to the income of my company .
In our redesign, we added options to view their statistics weekly, monthly, yearly, or all-time. Detailers would have all the data they need to see their progression and analyze the trends in their bookings. We added bookings by service, average booking price, and total time detailed to give detailers practicality specificity when looking at their analytics.
FINAL STEPS
We needed to redesign our website to include our new premium features.
We were implementing a system where users could subscribe to Detail Connect Pro from the web alongside this update, so we wanted to highlight the fact that users could start a free trial.
THE LAUNCH
From one month of tracking, we noticed a 41% increase in detailers starting our trial, with many of them extensively using their personal websites.
During this month, our outreach team contacted less detailers about our app, so our traffic was organic, coming from blogs, social media, and Chat GPT searches. Because we have more detailers using our subscription feature, we have also received feedback on our app, and we are continuing to improve our app by the day. Because Detail Connect is a growing company, our priority is to listen to our detailers and understand what they want in a CRM like Detail Connect Pro.
CONCLUSIONS
Some final thoughts and things to improve on.
Overall, designing and improving upon features for a CRM was a challenging because it is not something I had done before. However, it has been the an eye-opening experience for my professional career. From the multitude of feedback sessions from both our team and detailers, redesigning felt tedious at times, but contributed in polishing our end product. Here are some of my final thoughts and realizations:
Your team are your best friends. I was so blessed to have a team around me that encouraged one another and contributed ideas in a productive manner. There were many times when I felt stumped about how to go about a page, specifically our analytics page; but there was nothing but positive energy in our team meetings and reassurance that no ideas are bad ideas.
Plan for iterative features. At first, some of our features were going to be bigger, bolder, and…maybe not better. Information overload is a huge issue with the CRM landscape today because dozens of features are thrown at the user at once. We started simple, but fully functional. For our personal booking websites, we plan on more customization, but for now, all of our detailers are satisfied and so are we.
Take a break! Looking at a computer screen for hours has many negative implications, and one of them is that you don't become objective about your design. Because you have stared at it too long, your design no longer looks good and fuctional. Don't overthink and once you do find yourself doing so, ask for feedback from your team.
