Trimble Service Portal
TL;DR
Rethink the portal where managers request services for their fleet of vehicles.
Role:
Lead UX Designer | Frontend Developer
Project Overview
‘Trimble is an industrial technology company transforming the way the world works by delivering solutions that enable our customers to thrive.’ The project we worked on was in their vehicle fleet devision. Part of a financial software program called NetSuite, managers were limited to a basic questionnaire type form to request one service for one vehicle at a time. This resulted in managers disliking using the form to order service and instead calling customer service.
We were tasked with reimagining the portal in a user friendly way, with more function and visibility. With the goal of increasing efficiency and decreasing calls.
Strategy
Taking Stock
The first item we needed to sort out was what functions the portal already had and which functions the stakeholders would like to add.
Once we outlined the function of the portal it was clear that there were some big misses. The service vendor gave a 50% discount on any service to a second vehicle because it was more convenience to make one trip. This wasn’t a function that was currently possible in the portal.
Another issue was visibility. Once a manager created a service request they didn’t have a way to check on the service request or get a real lead time. Sometimes service requests were closed when the service wasn’t complete and it was not communicate properly.
Style Guide
One we mapped out what we have and where we are going, I put together a style guide that both adheres to Trimble’s style guidelines and takes into account our needs for the new portal. With the ever changing scope of the project this style guide would help to streamline the project visually.
I also created the buttons using Visual Studio Code, HTML, and CSS. It was fun to use a different set of skills that I don’t get to use often enough.
Wireframes
Starting with the wireframes I designed the screens from home to completing the service request. I wanted to keep the number of decisions you have to make on each page to a minimum and each action to be obvious.
One of the big improvements we made in the service portal was to allow managers to register vehicles. This way they would only have to enter a particular vehicle’s information one time. After that you can search by vehicle number.
Flow: The Service Process
One of the limitations of the previous service portal was that you couldn’t add several services for one vehicle on one order. Another was that you couldn’t add several vehicles on one order. With those limitations at the forefront when redesigning the portal we take the user through the ability to loop back and add another service, once that vehicle is complete they can add a vehicle and add multiple services. This resulted in fewer call to customer service and savings for managers to be able to take advantage of the multiple vehicle discount.
Though the client wanted the focus to be on desktop views rather than mobile but it was important for us to develop the portal with a mobile first mindset. This would allow the possibility of managers to be able to to work on the go if needed. We kept the mobile view tucked in our back pocket and by the end of the project the client was excited to see it was already considered and developed.
Service Request Visibility
The goal for service requests, that had already been submitted, was to make them visible to the managers. They should be easy to search by multiple methods and listed in a manner that is easy to digest for the user.
Our solution was to create a search bar, with a few quick options: all service requests, open service requests and closed service requests. These would be sorted by date with the most recent at the top. If the user find the one they are looking for they can use the view button to see the rest of the information about the request. Initially we didn’t have location on the quick view but added it at the request of the managers.
Challenges
Working for such a large company with many stakeholders was definitely a challenge. Once we were able to narrow down the scope and agree on requirements the stakeholders and scope would change. This was a great experience because it taught me to be flexible and not tied to a particular solution. If the target changes, just adjust the strategy.