elevating
e-commerce
Client | Precision Planting
Date | Jun. 2024 – Oct 2024
Role | Product Designer
project overview
During my time at Precision Planting, my team shifted away from internal tools and towards software that would directly boost sales.
Because sales happened through dealers, our solution was to support them by implementing a recommendation flow for struggling operations, and an improved quoting experience.
problem statement
Precision Planting’s existing order guide is hard to navigate, old, and requires a lot of in-depth, detailed reading to achieve the right quote.
We want the quote generation process more accessible and delightful to push recommendations and sales.
takeaways
Don't reinvent the wheel
The solution to selling online through dealers seems complicated at first, but it’s something similar machine/auto companies have already solved. Since users are already familiar with this flow, there would need to be major changes to needs or purpose to justify throwing something new at them.
Technical obstacles need to be defined before design solutions can be created
Many development flows have a hard line between the planning, the design, and the development phases of the project. Agile development not only for the whole products, but between phases, is essential to catching obstacles.
Neilson's 3rd Heuristic: User Freedom
We can do our best to make accurate quotes with our information and documentation. But at the end of the day, the expert dealer needs to be the one to make the final call, and have the flexibility to order whatever they need, even if it’s not “technically” compatible.
obstacles & solutions
The Precision Planting-dealer-customer relationship is the core of business and sales. Stakeholders are resistant to any developments that could interfere with this.
At every step of the process, we want to include our dealers. We followed the lead of other large equipment manufacturers. For any online sale, a dealer must be selected. This attributes the sale to that dealer. Now the grower can easily access repair parts, and the dealer gets a sale without additional work.
Precision Planting’s machine upgrades are complicated to quote and apply. It’s not always as simple as a decision tree.
We made a quoting system that is customizable, flexible, and designed to be out on the field. While talking to a support team member, I realized our problems wouldn’t be solved by “implementing decision logic” into our quote-making system. this is due to the infinite amount of machine types and Accurate quotes for this type of product cannot be done without an expert.
recommendation flow
A recommendation flow begins with low-stakes filling out of information – about equipment, crops, field conditions, and issues faced.
Once it is all filled out, underlying issues are hypothesized and the potential costs of ignoring them are displayed.
The recommendations are accented with ROI calculators that show the user how much could be saved with this technology.
order builder
If you want to start an order from the recommendations, you can used the existing equipment information to create a default base quote, instead of having to manually choose compatible parts.
Though we simplified the process, we still want to give the user freedom to select “incompatible” parts, adjust parts amount, or deselect parts in their order. This is assisted through documentation about each part.
A review of the quote at the end gives the dealer the option to save as quote, or submit an order directly to the company. This solution can create a quote and order significantly faster than the current manual selection system.
