Poke

CarNow l 2020

Overview

CarNow offers products that enable dealer agents to communicate with customers on dealer websites, facilitating the initiation of the car-buying process online and allowing customers to complete the process during their visits to the dealership.

Poke pops up in the bottom right or left when customers first enter dealer websites, allowing dealers to guide customers in fulfilling their needs, such as finding a vehicle, valuing trades, making appointments, or chatting with dealer agents. Customers are provided with shortcuts to these features on the websites.

Team

Product Manager
Product Designer
Engineers

My Role

Product Designer

Design Process

User Research - Competitors Research - Define Problem & Propose Solution - Customer and Dealer Persona & User Scenario - Wireframe - Interface Design - Develop

1. User Research

To find problem,

The product manager interviewed several dealers currently utilizing CarNow products. Many dealers expressed the need to enhance both the quantity and quality of leads coming to their websites.

Upon visiting these dealer websites, I observed a multitude of menus and car photos/videos, with homepages predominantly designed to captivate customers through visually appealing car displays, encouraging them to explore inventories or schedule service appointments. However, accessing essential lead-generating features such as trade-ins, prequalification, and appointment scheduling proved to be more challenging.

2. Competitors Research

To find out current trends,

I used, studied, and analyzed existing competitors on the market, and also learn from their successes and avoid their mistakes.

Competitor

ActiveEngage

Gubagoo

Features

  • Fixed chat button on bottom corner
  • Choose language
  • Chat with agent on website
  • Communicate on text
  • Fixed chat button on bottom corner
  • A small chat box pops up as soon as you enter the dealer website
  • Chat with agent on website
  • Communicate on text

Discomfort

  • Have to provide name to start chat
  • No action item provided
  • No action item provided
  • When chat is started, there is no way to switch to text

3. Define Problem & Propose Solution

Problem Statement

Dealers aren't receiving sufficient quality leads from their websites, and customers encounter difficulties on dealer websites in accomplishing their goals beyond searching for inventory.

Solution Statement

Poke offers a variety of CTAs to seamlessly guide customers to their desired information and includes a feature for sending quick messages to dealers when necessary. By leveraging Poke, dealers can efficiently direct customers towards essential lead-generating features, streamlining the process for collecting more leads.

4-1. Customer Persona

4-2. Dealer Persona

4-3. User Scenario

Trigger

The price of used cars is going up due to inventory shortages. Gabriel thinks it might be a good time to sell his current car, so he wants to find out how much it's worth and potentially look for a new one.

Action

Gabriel opens the browser on his smartphone and visits various dealer websites.

Frustration

Gabriel is browsing the website, but all he finds on the homepage are photos and short clips of newly released cars that dealers are eager to sell. Feeling lost about where to go, he starts scrolling up and down the page. Although he notices the chat button, he decides not to engage with a dealer agent just yet. As a result, he leaves the dealer's website and visits another one.

Calvin missed the opportunity to gain at least one lead from the website due to unfriendly navigation, but it could have been more than one.

Solution & Reward

Calvin's dealership installs Poke and configures its UI to match the dealer website's color scheme and style.

When customers who want to see their cars' values land on the dealer website, Poke with 'Value Trade' and 'Pre-Qualify' buttons pops up on the bottom right. They can simply click 'Value Trade' there and see the values of their cars with minimal clicks and time. As a result, Calvin gathers more quality leads and makes appointments to delve into more detailed trade-in values.

5. Wireframes

To visualize the idea,

I created a wireframe to review the layout and idea with product managers and consulted with engineers to confirm its feasibility.

6. Interface Design

Make it look more realistic

Design

Most of CarNow's customer-facing products are configurable by dealers to match their websites' style and process. So, when I designed them, I had to create a variety of versions, incorporating corner radii from 0px to 24px and 0 to 3 CTAs in different colors.

Desktop

Mobile

Installed

Poke is fixed either at the bottom right or left, as dealers configure. It pops up as customers land on dealer websites.

Conclusion

‍With Poke installed, the number of leads dealers are getting from their websites has increased significantly.