SMB(Small and Medium Business) Segment Shipping Service
Outcome Took online shipping from a 0% task success rate to an award-winning tool — Snap Ship won the 2018 World Post & Parcel Award (Delivery On Demand) and drove $4M+ in revenue.
My role:
UX Manager.
I also filled in as UX Lead at the beginning of the project while we were recruiting a designer.
Context:
EST Online, the previous shipping solution on the Canada Post website allowed small business customers to prepare and ship their packages online. Efforts had been invested to migrate small business customers to using the online tool rather than ship at the post office. However, poor usability of the EST Online prevented small businesses from successfully shipping online and fully benefiting from the Solutions for Small Business program.
The success rate of the full flow was 0%. Small businesses who would like to ship online abandon the process and either head to a competitor’s online service, or head to the post office to ship their package. This means 1) lost business for Canada Post and 2) more traffic to the post office both of which Canada Post is looking to move away from.
Research:
Usability studies were conducted to assess the ease of users signing up and using the EST Online tool to ship a package.
• One-on-one, exploratory, in-person interviews with 12 small business owners/decision-makers, interacting with EST Online
- 6 CPC small business clients, that shipped primarily at CPC outlets
- 6 non-CPC customers, that ship online with using a competitor
- Mix of business sizes (from SOHOs or small business up to 100 employees)
- Mix of shipping frequency (half <50 shipments/months, half 50+ shipments/month)
• Participants were asked to prepare a shipment with EST Online
• The System Usability Scale (SUS) came to 43, which meant F(Awful)
• Participants’ average self-reported level of satisfaction with the ease of use, time to complete and confidence using the tool were lowest for EST Online than all other tools(Purolator, FedEx and UPS) tested
Solution:
• Findings from the research and competitive analysis(Purolator, FedEx and UPS) was used to inform the prototype
- Multiple usability testings were performed on the Axure prototype of EST Online
- Prototype was iterated using the usability findings
• The System Usability Scale (SUS) improved from 43(for existing shipping tool) to 87( Re-designed)
• Development was done using agile methodology
• The final prototype validate by the end user was used to come-up with stories and epics by the Product Owner.
The lead designer was part of the scrum team. He represented the UX team while getting help from content writer, UI designer, researcher and rest of the UX team. The prototype for every sprint was delivered at the beginning of the sprint. Sometimes it also involved re-testing the feature/functionality with the end user.
Before:
Before: Parcel Shipping for the SMB Segment
After:
After: Parcel Shipping for the SMB Segment
Following the SMB(Small and Medium Business) Segment Shipping Service, the Consumer Segment Shipping Service was also redesigned.
Before:
Before: Parcel Shipping for the Consumer Segment
Before: Parcel Shipping for the Consumer Segment
After:
After: Parcel Shipping for the Consumer Segment
After: Parcel Shipping for the Consumer Segment
Result:
The shipping tool has seen multifold year-over-year customer and revenue growth. It also won an award at the World Post & Parcel Awards.
Multifold year-over-year customer and revenue growth since launch. Furthermore, the revenue during the pandemic doubled compared to the previous year.