Cardoc Partners: Converting website to native mobile app
Mobile App Design (Android)
May 2015 - August 2015
# of Shop Admin users: 120 (95% Android, 5% iOS)
Active users: 89
Cardoc Partners is a business management application for Cardoc’s partner body shops. Mechanic engineers at body shops send quotes to Cardoc users, communicate with them, and measure their business success through this app. Initially, there was a website called Shop Admin for body shops; however, we had to convert it to a mobile app so users could easily access the quote and communicate with their customers.
User Research & Pain Points
Mechanic engineers (Main users) couldn’t respond to the chat or send quotes in real-time when using the Shop Admin website. This caused customers to have to wait too long to proceed with their repair process.
Shops would avoid using the Shop Admin site for communicating with customers since the website doesn’t give real-time notifications. Instead, they would use text messages or other messenger apps on their phones.
Over 80% of users would access the Shop Admin site with their phones. Albeit it's responsive, it was more optimized for Desktops. On the mobile phone, the site had a long scroll and required a lot of inefficient movement to complete a task.
114 shops out of 120 (95%) were using Android devices.
The problems are ...
The Shop Admin site doesn’t provide easy use on mobile devices, especially for customer interactions.
Users are not staying on the platform since no real-time notification of updates.
If the communication occurs outside the app, Cardoc cannot record the entire repair process for customer support.
The Goals
Develop an Android app with communication features;
Real-time notifications for new quotes, new messages, and updated repair status & Generating a caller ID when getting phone calls from customers
Design an efficient way of managing quotes on mobile;
Minimizing the number of clicks when quotes are generated and sent & Providing quotes list view categorized based on repair status
Final Design; new communication features
Real-time notification
New requests and chat updates are notified in real-time and visually noticeable within the app.
Caller ID
When clients call, the quote info is shown on the mobile screen as a popup window. The user can easily communicate about the client’s vehicle information, repair process, and status.
Final Design; new quote management
Reduce the number of clicks when sending quotes
With two parts of repairing, Shop Admin site required 11 clicks while Cardoc Partners app requires 7 clicks.
Reduce unnecessary scrolling
Shop Admin required multiple scrolling when selecting parts since the photos are on the top and adding repairing parts was on the bottom of the screen. On Cardoc Partners app, photos are close to selecting section (2nd screen), so mechanics are able to select what to repair instantly.
Tabs separated based on quotes status
The app organizes quotes in a way that mirrors the repair process flow. For example, when the customer accepts the quote, the quote card moves from the Request to Reservation tab automatically.
Outcome
In the first month, we saw higher usage of the Cardoc Partners app when it comes to writing quotes and responding to the chat. The usage of the Shop Admin website also increased due to more repair shops joining Cardoc Partners.
The time to respond to the customers was reduced by about 30 minutes.
About 90% of our repair shops switched to Cardoc Partners app from Shop Admin site.
Response rate to request
in Shop Admin3% ▲
Response rate to request
in Cardoc Partners7.1% ▲
Counselling rate in Shop Admin
2% ▲
Counselling rate
in Cardoc Partners6.1% ▲
Time spent to respond to new quotes and messages
28.7 mins ▼
Conversion rate from Shop Admin to Cardoc Partners
90%
Additional features added
Announcement board to partner shops
Group purchasing program for miscellaneous items
Auto parts purchasing program
Repair shop marketing tools
Project Retrospective
Our team started ideating Cardoc Partners in May, and we launched phase 1 of the app in August. Though we are a small team with me as a designer, one Android developer, one project manager, and one QA tester, we planned and executed fast.
When planning this project, we sat at the table and discussed the main features, requirements, dependencies, priorities, and launch plans together. As a junior designer, the experience opened my eyes to what building a product as a team means.
When testing the beta version, we went to our partner repair shops and did a quick usability testing with mechanics. We were able to switch our design from using minimal icons to big text-labeled buttons. Through the testing, we as a team gained valuable insights about our users and were able to design the app for them.
This app was the first Android app I launched and one of my favorite projects, though I worked on multiple products at Cardoc. It taught me not only how to design for mobile devices, but also how to work, communicate with people, and contribute as a team member.