Julie Valeur | Mobile companion app

Mobile companion app

Alto (B2B Software for zoopla)

Through sale data analysis, I identified that a gap in mobile functionality was causing 45% of demo losses to competitors.

I designed and delivered a mobile companion solution that reduced demo losses by 91% and achieved 48% weekly retention.

My role

I owned the end-to-end project from the design side, working alongside a product manager, a team of engineers and a data analyst.

I conducted the discovery research, I facilitated a planning & delivery workshop and delivered pixel-perfect designs. I also set up launch messaging and user guidance.

1. Context

Alto lacked a solution to allow agents while working away from their desk. This gap significant impacted our sales effort, with 45% of lost demos citing it as a reason for going with a competitor.

This was also hindering our user’s productivity, and forcing them to rely on tedious workarounds to access data on their mobile devices.

2. Research

I conducted both quantitative and qualitative research to better understand the specific areas of the products our customers needed remotely.

🔎 User insights

I compiled the insights from 7 customer interviews and 1000+ survey answers to create an activity map (above). This highlighted specific product areas and features to focus on.

📊 Usage analysis

To further strengthen my findings, and measure our progress, I also looked at our mobile usage data, and workarounds prevalence.

💼 Business requirements

Stakeholders needed early indicators of competitive advantage and user adoption to validate the mobile-first strategy.

⚙️ Technical constraints

Modernisation to our legacy system required us to carefully scope our approach to deliver maximum impact within the agreed timeline.

3. Solution

I worked with the product manager and engineering leads to design a phased mobile experience that balanced user needs & constraints.

Delivery plan

👤

Contacts

- Search client base

- Review contact details and notes

- Call, text and email

🗓️

Calendar

- Access personal calendar

- Highlight upcoming appointments

- Review appointment details

Designing the interface

My focus was on designing an interface to fit the user’s context: this companion is mainly used while out meeting clients, therefore users are often navigating it while multi-tasking. The key was keeping it easy and to the point.

Rollout & cohorts

I worked with the product manager to agree on a phased rollout with the goal of quickly iterating based on real feedback. After consulting with engineering leads, we agreed on 3 phases of delivery.

Customer education

Ahead of the first rollout, I worked with our content designer to craft some in-app messaging to help customer transition to this new experience.

This ensured a smooth transition cross-devices, while also allowing us to introduce early feedback loops to engage with customers.

4. Outcome

The reception of this new product matched our expectations: customers were excited for a step in the right direction, and really like this first iteration, but more functionalities were needed to meet their needs.

Customer sentiment

I collated over 300 user comments based on on-going feedback and a post-rollout survey. This showed 82% satisfaction, but within this 90% included requests for further features.

Retention and behavioural changes

These insights were further validated by usage data.

🎯

Weekly retention after 90 days

48%

📲

Behaviour: Exporting diary

- 63%

🖨️

Behaviour: Printing schedule

- 14%

💼