Accelerating retailer onboarding by streamlining workflows
Accelerating retailer onboarding by streamlining workflows
Accelerating retailer onboarding by streamlining workflows
UX Research
UX Design
Web
E-commerce
Context
In 2024, I joined Fruugo on a maternity cover contract during a pivotal time when the business was focused on growing its platform and attracting high-quality retailers. By early 2025, the priority was focused on 'onboarding retailers at pace'.
Together with the Product Owners, I was tasked with identifying and improving internal tools and workflows to streamline the onboarding process. Our goal was to reduce inefficiencies and minimise manual tasks for the internal teams, whilst creating opportunities for retailers onboarding to self-serve as much as possible.
Context
CarePlanner just launched a beta of a new feature, electronic Medication Administration Records (eMARS) when I joined the organisation. However, despite initial engagement, feedback from beta testers was starting to dwindle and customer-facing teams reported that customers were losing interest.
In particular, the medication alerts function, which alerted care managers to medication events recorded by carers in real time, had not gained as much interest as expected. This caused some concern as much of the sales and marketing messaging planned for the product launch centred the value proposition on this feature.
Challenges
The primary tool used for onboarding retailers, the 'Tech Ops' tool, was designed as an internal-facing system. Over time, it had accumulated significant technical and design debt. This made it challenging to navigate and optimise, as there were numerous potential pain points to address.
In addition, due to the users being Fruugo staff there was little quantitative or interaction data available from the tool, so we relied heavily on anecdotal evidence from team members to understand the user experience. Their feedback revealed a range of "workarounds" that had evolved to cope with the tool’s design flaws, which contributed to a lot of inconsistencies and inefficiencies, as different team members developed their own methods for navigating the tool, leading to a lack of uniformity in how it was used and learned.
Challenges
The primary tool used for onboarding retailers, the 'Tech Ops' tool, was designed as an internal-facing system. Over time, it had accumulated significant technical and design debt. This made it challenging to navigate and optimise, as there were numerous potential pain points to address.
In addition, due to the users being Fruugo staff there was little quantitative or interaction data available from the tool, so we relied heavily on anecdotal evidence from team members to understand the user experience. Their feedback revealed a range of "workarounds" that had evolved to cope with the tool’s design flaws, which contributed to a lot of inconsistencies and inefficiencies, as different team members developed their own methods for navigating the tool, leading to a lack of uniformity in how it was used and learned.
Challenges
Sales teams who helped onboard customers onto the beta programme said they didn’t usually demo the alerts feature because it ‘overwhelmed’ customers or they ‘weren’t ready for it yet’.
Customer-facing teams reported customers rarely spoke to them about medication alerts when giving feedback about their beta experience.
There was a lack of product data to quantify user adoption or engagement with the feature.
Results
(Data collection in progress)
Results
01.
XX Reduction in clicks/page loads to access key onboarding information.
+66% increase in task success
Before: X clicks
Before: X clicks
After: In progress
After: In progress
02.
XX Decrease in the average hours spent creating and sending manual status updates per retailer, as a Tech Ops user.
+66% increase in task success
Before: X hours
Before: X hours
After: In progress
After: In progress
'Designed for, not with'…
User Research
The product team and I began our research by interviewing three team leaders whose teams were responsible for onboarding retailers. Our goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the user experience and the challenges they faced in their workflows.
Interview and Observation Insights:
Painful Navigation: The design of the Tech-ops tool separated core onboarding functions into 12 distinct modules; the implementation required users to search for a retailer every time they entered a module to access any action within the module. This not only delayed access to basic functionality, but also put unnecessary strain on system performance due to frequent search queries.
Fragmented Information: The siloed design of the tool made it difficult for team members to view a retailer’s full onboarding progress. Users were forced to juggle multiple tabs and windows across different modules, leading to difficulties in "picking up where they left off." This disjointed view also hindered collaboration with other teams, such as Sales and Account Managers, who struggled to offer support without a unified view of progress. Consequently, much time and effort was spent sharing status updates and coordinating progress across teams.
Inconsistent Automation: While some onboarding tasks were automated in certain parts of the tool, automation was applied inconsistently and sporadically. As a result, many tasks still relied heavily on manual work, which increased the risk of human error thus led to more review cycles, further adding to the team's workload.
Frustration with Tool Development: Users also expressed some frustration over the evolution of the tool. They noted that, over the years, they had not been actively involved in its design and felt disconnected from decisions that often directly impacted their workflow. This meant they often had to adapt to new features that were built for them, rather than with their input.
The product team and I began our research by interviewing three team leaders whose teams were responsible for onboarding retailers. Our goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the user experience and the challenges they faced in their workflows.
Interview and Observation Insights:
Painful Navigation: The design of the Tech-ops tool separated core onboarding functions into 12 distinct modules; the implementation required users to search for a retailer every time they entered a module to access any action within the module. This not only delayed access to basic functionality, but also put unnecessary strain on system performance due to frequent search queries.
Fragmented Information: The siloed design of the tool made it difficult for team members to view a retailer’s full onboarding progress. Users were forced to juggle multiple tabs and windows across different modules, leading to difficulties in "picking up where they left off." This disjointed view also hindered collaboration with other teams, such as Sales and Account Managers, who struggled to offer support without a unified view of progress. Consequently, much time and effort was spent sharing status updates and coordinating progress across teams.
Inconsistent Automation: While some onboarding tasks were automated in certain parts of the tool, automation was applied inconsistently and sporadically. As a result, many tasks still relied heavily on manual work, which increased the risk of human error thus led to more review cycles, further adding to the team's workload.
Frustration with Tool Development: Users also expressed some frustration over the evolution of the tool. They noted that, over the years, they had not been actively involved in its design and felt disconnected from decisions that often directly impacted their workflow. This meant they often had to adapt to new features that were built for them, rather than with their input.
- Painful Navigation: The design of the Tech-ops tool separated core onboarding functions into 12 distinct modules; the implementation required users to search for a retailer every time they entered a module to access any action within the module. This not only delayed access to basic functionality, but also put unnecessary strain on system performance due to frequent search queries.
- Fragmented Information: The siloed design of the tool made it difficult for team members to view a retailer’s full onboarding progress. Users were forced to juggle multiple tabs and windows across different modules, leading to difficulties in "picking up where they left off." This disjointed view also hindered collaboration with other teams, such as Sales and Account Managers, who struggled to offer support without a unified view of progress. Consequently, much time and effort was spent sharing status updates and coordinating progress across teams.
- Inconsistent Automation: While some onboarding tasks were automated in certain parts of the tool, automation was applied inconsistently and sporadically. As a result, many tasks still relied heavily on manual work, which increased the risk of human error thus led to more review cycles, further adding to the team's workload.
- Frustration with Tool Development: Users also expressed some frustration over the evolution of the tool. They noted that, over the years, they had not been actively involved in its design and felt disconnected from decisions that often directly impacted their workflow. This meant they often had to adapt to new features that were built for them, rather than with their input.
Our current process is hindered by the [Tech Ops] tool…we spend too much time on things the technology should be doing…or at least helping us with…and less time on actually doing the important, core tasks that humans should be doing
Our current process is hindered by the [Tech Ops] tool…we spend too much time on things the technology should be doing…or at least helping us with…and less time on actually doing the important, core tasks that humans should be doing
Time-consuming and Expensive...
Leveraging the understanding gained from initial interviews, we then engaged team leads in detailed workshops to map the end-to-end workflow to onboard a new retailer onto the Fruugo marketplace. This process helped illuminate the most significant pain points and understand the magnitude of these issues, where user behaviour data was lacking.
12 modules for different onboarding functions
search for retailer required in each
12 modules for different onboarding functions
search for retailer required in each
12 modules for different onboarding functions
search for retailer required in each
15 different search pages
with inconsistent design and search results
x 27 daily users repeating same action
with another 13, accessing the tool less frequently
Images coming soon
18/31 onboarding tasks for checking data exists
amongst the 12 different modules
18/31 onboarding tasks for checking data exists
amongst the 12 different modules
18/31 onboarding tasks for checking data exists
amongst the 12 different modules
7/31 tasks
required manual notification
to inform other team members of updates and progress
Exploring a new approach.
Ideation
Collaborating with developers and users, the Product Owner (PO) and I iterated a promising solution: a single, global search to replace the Tech Ops tool's twelve separate module searches. Centralising relevant information into consistent, unified search results, the concept aimed to dramatically reduce manual navigation and searching for basic onboarding data whilst streamlining inter-team progress updates.
High-level wireframes were created to test this vision with internal stakeholders for early feedback and validation.
Defining Value
Prioritisation
With stakeholders embracing the global search concept, the PO and I held a user workshop to pinpoint their top data priorities for search results. This aimed to streamline the 18 out of 31 onboarding tasks that currently require navigating to specific modules solely to verify data existence.
The insights gleaned from the prioritisation exercise informed the design scope of the search results and helped us consider the development approach needed to deliver this work efficiently.
Defining success.
Aligning with the wider business goal of accelerating retailer 'onboarding at pace', and focusing on the most critical pain points uncovered in our research, we defined the following two measures to determine the success of this project in improving the user experience.
These two measures of success focused on the most significant drains on time and resources within the existing onboarding process, which seemed like the most valuable places to start.
Defining success.
Upon discussing these findings with internal stakeholders, it was felt improvements needed to prioritise the user’s perception of complexity and time investment. With this in mind, and given the limited amount of user data available, we considered the following measures to guide and quantify the success of any design enhancements we implemented.
01.
Decrease time Tech Ops users spend on navigating and searching for retailer-specific information within the Tech Ops tool
+66% increase in task success
Reduced number of clicks or page loads required to access key onboarding information.
02.
Reduce time dedicated to manually communicating onboarding progress updates to internal stakeholders such as Sales and Account Management teams
+66% increase in task success
20% decrease in the average hours a Tech Ops team member currently spends creating and sending manual status updates per retailer.
Fast and iterative delivery
Design
To deliver the new global search and search results efficiently, we adopted a card-by-card design process. This allowed focused design, validation and refinement of each card before development, ensuring a fluid, continuous delivery of value throughout the quarter, rather than a large upfront release.
The first sprint delivered a core global search feature, significantly streamlining navigation by integrating quick-access buttons to all 12 Tech Ops modules directly within the search results. This eliminated the time-consuming need for users to enter each module individually and perform redundant searches to access core functionalities for a retailer..
Simultaneously, we addressed the inaccessibility of catalogue information by implementing the "Catalogue Card" in the global search results.
This card provided an at-a-glance view of crucial SKU data: expected, uploaded with errors, and successfully uploaded. This design directly solved a significant user pain point, condensing a four-step navigation process (Catalogue Module > Search > Search Results > Retailer's Catalogue View) into a single, efficient display. Furthermore, the addition of the ' with errors' metric automated a previous manual check, offering an immediate indicator of a retailer's 'go live' status.
Whilst the engineering development of the above work was in progress, I focused on designs for readily available legal and compliance data. This phase involved several design iterations, driven by Tech Ops feedback, culminating in three distinct and informative cards.
As with the above Catalogue Card, these cards surfaced crucial Retailer data in the global search results instead of being separated across multiple screens.
In the following weeks, our design process remained deeply collaborative, with continuous engagement from Tech Ops users shaping the development of subsequent cards for shipping, country configuration, tax management, and integration information.
As with the above Catalogue Card, these cards surfaced crucial Retailer data in the global search results instead of being separated across multiple screens.
In the following weeks, our design process remained deeply collaborative, with continuous engagement from Tech Ops users shaping the development of subsequent cards for shipping, country configuration, tax management, and integration information.
Critically, the iterative process addressed both individual card functionalities and the broader search results experience. We continuously refined the overarching layout and information architecture, aiming for a cohesive and intuitive design where the placement and organisation of all cards directly mirrored Tech Ops' established workflows and information retrieval patterns.
Just the start…
Impact
Our iterative design and agile development process culminated in the successful, on-time delivery of the full Tech Ops global search and search results dashboard.
The Tech Ops users are currently providing invaluable real-world feedback through user acceptance testing, and the initial response to the integrated global search and comprehensive card-based design has been overwhelmingly positive. Users are highlighting its intuitiveness and significant time savings, and over the next quarter, we will be closely reviewing our key measures of success to quantify the impact of these design changes.
In the meantime, this promising start has spurred exploration into extending similar benefits to our retailers. We are now in the initial stages of envisioning a self-serve onboarding portal, aiming to empower them to do as much as possible of the 'go live' journey themselves, applying the successful principles and anticipated learnings from the Tech Ops dashboard implementation.
Our iterative design and agile development process culminated in the successful, on-time delivery of the full Tech Ops global search and search results dashboard.
The Tech Ops users are currently providing invaluable real-world feedback through user acceptance testing, and the initial response to the integrated global search and comprehensive card-based design has been overwhelmingly positive. Users are highlighting its intuitiveness and significant time savings, and over the next quarter, we will be closely reviewing our key measures of success to quantify the impact of these design changes.
In the meantime, this promising start has spurred exploration into extending similar benefits to our retailers. We are now in the initial stages of envisioning a self-serve onboarding portal, aiming to empower them to do as much as possible of the 'go live' journey themselves, applying the successful principles and anticipated learnings from the Tech Ops dashboard implementation.
Our iterative design and agile development process culminated in the successful, on-time delivery of the full Tech Ops global search and search results dashboard.
The Tech Ops users are currently providing invaluable real-world feedback through user acceptance testing, and the initial response to the integrated global search and comprehensive card-based design has been overwhelmingly positive. Users are highlighting its intuitiveness and significant time savings, and over the next quarter, we will be closely reviewing our key measures of success to quantify the impact of these design changes.
In the meantime, this promising start has spurred exploration into extending similar benefits to our retailers. We are now in the initial stages of envisioning a self-serve onboarding portal, aiming to empower them to do as much as possible of the 'go live' journey themselves, applying the successful principles and anticipated learnings from the Tech Ops dashboard implementation.
Result 01 - data collection in progress
Impact data coming soon
Result 01 - data collection in progress
Impact data coming soon
Result 01 - data collection in progress
Impact data coming soon
Result 02 - data collection display here
Impact data coming soon
Next steps.
Gathering ongoing feedback from the Tech Ops team and diligently collecting data to rigorously evaluate the success of the newly implemented dashboard against our defined metrics.
Discovery phase to explore a Retailer Self-Serve Concept. building upon the success and learnings from the Tech Ops dashboard, to investigate if a similar search-driven experience could help retailers navigate the onboarding process more efficiently and independently.