PROJECT SUMMARY

This was a multifaceted project that started out as a seedling of an idea to modernize the lead generation form which analytics showed was experiencing significant drop-off after customer registration. After the project commenced, the scope of the project grew to developing an engaging introductory walkthrough experience that would streamline internal processes, filter out nonviable leads, and decrease lead drop off by generating excitement for the jewelry designing process. Through this project, the amount of qualified leads doubled, internal time team was optimized, and significant cost savings were realized.

THE PROBLEM

The three main problems we wanted to tackle with this project are as follows:

1. The process to complete a project with CustomMade was too long and inefficient.
   Prior to this project, when a customer signed up to make a project with us, they were paired with a jewelry consultant who would ask them questions via on-platform messaging over the span of weeks to months (customer dependent) to gather information to help them define their project concept. Due to the process taking place entirely through our on-platform messaging system, miscommunications were inevitable and ultimately increased the overall length of the project, thus wasting valuable team time and costs.
2. The short length of the lead generation form led to customer drop off.
   The old lead generation form did generate excitement, however its short length wasn’t able to sustain the aforementioned excitement and in losing momentum, we saw a large consumer drop off.
3. Nonviable leads were entering the project queues, wasting valuable team time and money.
   Although CustomMade’s service offering is largely open ended, there is a limit to their capability meaning some project requests simply aren’t a match for the service. An unspecified service focus and no means to distinguish good vs bad leads gave way to customers with ineligible requests to enter into the project queues. This resulted in lengthier wait times in the message threads as jewelry consultants would spend valuable time pursuing these dead ends and inefficient use of team costs.

PROCESS

Step 1: Figuring Out How to Keep Momentum

This project journey started with external research into competitors and any other makers of custom goods that share a similarly structured platform. One of the most popular solutions I came across was a multipart quiz-style onboarding flow where users answer service-relevant softball questions to both build excitement and help the company gather useful data. Our then-current lead generation form was similar in structure to these examples, but was both too short in length and didn’t ask any of the “fun” questions, probably giving users false expectations and contributing to drop off.

Step 2: Breaking Down the Jewelry Consultant Processes

A common theme I noticed amongst all of these sites with this particular type of onboarding flow was that they have the customer do all of the work and the customers (me) are excited to do it.

With this in mind, I collaborated with the head of the manager of the jewelry consultant team, Ava Kenny, to get a better understanding of how their process worked and what portions of their process would be interesting enough to be parsed out and put in the hands of the customer. Ava, my mentor Ryan, and I had a series of whiteboarding sessions where we broke down the entire jewelry consultant process into digestible and coherent pieces and figured out the order in which to include them in the introductory walkthrough.

Step 3: Developing a Nonviable Lead Filtration System

While still figuring out the structure of the walkthrough, Ryan and I worked to build a system that would ultimately weed out any nonviable leads before they hit the queues. This consisted of shifting the site and brand focus from all fine jewelry to engagement rings as well as including targeted questions in the flow. This was a shift that was already in the works as CustomMade was looking to hone their service offering, so the to match the company shift, the new version of the lead generation form and introductory walkthrough would be engagement-centric. Historically, many of the non-converting leads have not been engagement ring customers so this would be the main filter.

The second filter we made to be the very first question of the walkthrough which is whether the person on the other end of the screen is shopping for themselves or someone else. Site data has shown that almost everyone shopping for themselves was nonviable as the buyer of engagement rings is usually a significant other. This question would divert “shopping for themselves” leads from entering the queues.

Step 4: Low-fis, Hi-fis, and Final Delivery

V1 of this project took place over the course of a year. I began developing wireframes immediately after our whiteboarding session in which we discussed the sequence of events. These wireframes included all splash screens and interstitial screens and mapped out the actual flow of the walkthrough. These were quickly approved after which I shifted focus to low-fi designs.

This part of the process was mostly about refining the UX of the flow including how the desktop designs of the screens would translate to mobile, making sure everything was intuitive and if it wasn’t, making sure to include proper supplementary features, and applying the branding. This is where the project really started coming to life and all of the moving parts were beginning to fit together like a puzzle.

Hi-fi iterations were the longest segment of the whole project. Multiple rounds of feedback was received from various parts of the team from language to image choice, etc. Although it took the longest, this was the most helpful part of the process. Even though we wanted this project to move as fast as possible, it was a massive undertaking with so many moving parts so it was important that team feedback was properly processed and implemented since this would be one of the biggest projects we’ve ever done that would directly affect sale conversion. Once the final hi-fi iteration was approved, the project was finally prepped for engineering handoff and ready to be implemented into the site.

CHALLENGES

I think one of the biggest challenges for me was not being able to “reinvent the wheel” with this project. This was an incredibly large project that we were pressed for time to complete so my mentor would frequently remind me that time is of the essence and that anything I do, even if I feel that it isn’t perfect, will be better than what they currently have and that I will eventually get the chance to make edits but efficiency was key in the moment.

I was still a student at the time and it was one of my very first projects on the job. I was super eager and wanted to go above and beyond with every single design decision that I made. Learning to be an efficient designer was tough, but incredibly helpful and something that will be a key asset in my career as a designer.

Another lesson I learned while completing this project was learning that sometimes there are team limitations that will ultimately affect my designs. In this specific instance, there was 1 software engineer on the team who had a never-ending backlog of requests and was being pulled in every direction by people across the team. This being a large project for him to complete, sometimes I received pushback on my designs or design liberties would be taken by him to help expedite the building process so he could move onto the next task.

This was definitely a huge learning experience for me and proved to be big lesson about having patience, but it was invaluable as I learned to work with what I have and not for an ideal circumstance. Instead of handing him a super intricate file and asking him to make revisions when some things seemed to be out of place, I learned to dial my designs back to help meet him halfway and decrease any team tension.

TLDR: SOLUTION SUMMARY

1. We streamlined the jewelry consultant process by breaking it down into digestible pieces and made those pieces into flows and forms. We would then assemble these to make the introductory walkthrough flow that would follow the lead generation form in which the customer can personally provide their ring preferences in a few short minutes as opposed to over the span of several weeks.
2. Maintaining the customers' excitement was of utmost importance to keep them engaged. By bringing the jewelry consultant process to the walkthrough, we were also able to put the customer in the driver’s seat and get them revved up for what’s to come through the newly added self-serve functionality.
3. Through site analytics, we were able to identify what type of leads were historically non-converting and build a filtration system to eliminate them before they could enter the project queues.

IMAGES

RESULTS

As a result of this project, we saw the amount of qualified lead volumes double which in turn led to an increase in sale conversion. Shortly after the launch of this project, the company went from negative capital to break even.