Customer service web application

Project summary

Please note: this is only a summary of the project. More detailed information and visuals are left out due to copyright restrictions. Feel free to reach out if you wanna know more!

Obelink is an outdoor and camping megastore based in Winterswijk, The Netherlands. Obelink's webshop is supported by a customer service team of around 70+ employees. At the time, the CS team was working with an ERP-system which was very error-prone and inefficient. Because of this, simple customer requests, like a cancellation or a mutation of orders, would take a lot of time (on average 15 minutes per call). In addition, every year around summer time, Obelink had to significantly expand the CS team and spend a lot of time training new staff because of the increasing number of calls.

Obelink came to us, at the time my employer BZTRS Agency, for help. The aim was to develop a custom web application that could work with their current ERP-system, but would make mutating orders much faster and easier. Together with a strategy consultant I worked on the assignment. We planned two to three sessions with Obelink to understand the problem and current IT landscape.

We started with interactive sessions, together with Obelink, to better understand the problem and IT landscape. Together with Obelink, we defined 20+ scenarios that customers call for or are common actions. Using the Now/Next/Later method, we were able to prioritize the four most important scenarios that would be included in the application. For each of the four scenarios we created two service blueprints to define the “As Is” (current) situation and the “To Be” (desired) situation. It was the goal to replace as many inefficient manual jobs with systems to smoothen the process.

After defining the desired situation, I started translating these requirements into screens using wireframes. The aim was to design an interface intended for the CS team, but which customers should also be able to work with in the future if necessary. Based on the basic page structure, I started designing the actual UI of the application and used Obelink's current branding (logo, colors, fonts, components, etc.) as ingredients. My design was handed over to the developers where I helped to define the technical requirements.

The assignment formulated:

"How can we help Obelink's customer service to handle consumer queries more efficiently and quickly?"

In the end the application was finished and implemented at Obelink. The new customer service application enables Obelink to train staff way quicker, help their customers faster and do it with less staff. Now, the CS team can complete customer calls within 5 minutes, instead of 15, so it is both a win in time and cost.

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