Snap-on Connect
Franchisee Connect application for sales and customers management
Overview
Snap-On is a old tradition company founded in 1920. Net sales of $3.7 billion in 2017. Serves customers in more than 103 countries with more than 3,400 franchise vans in the United States.
The franchises are the core segment of Snap-on's business, creating a platform that enables them to sell faster, anticipate their stock needs, and create promotions for their customers was a clear business advantage that needed to be covered.
The problem we are trying to solve:
Reduces the amount of manual work Snap-on's franchises do in order to take new orders create new promotions and maintain a profitable relationship with their customers.
My contribution
Ux Foundations
Product Strategy
User Research
Product Design
Team
1 x Project Manager
1 x UX Designer
5 x Engineers
Duration
6 Months
Process
Having a history dating back to 1920, this client is currently facing a rapid transition from traditional pen-and-paper methods to the digital realm. However, the adoption of this new way of doing business, especially among the majority of their users, is met with resistance.
Given the client's limited experience with research methods in digital product development, simply plunging into the process wouldn't have generated the required buy-in. To address this, we commenced the project with a series of workshops, incorporating enjoyable exercises.
These workshops were strategically designed to educate the client and cultivate a user-centered mindset.
Workshop sessions snapshot, intense but fun.
We also had some fun workshops like breaking down the User Research process, using the "How Might We" approach, crafting storyboards, and a bunch of other interactive activities.
Foundations
Following a month filled with workshops and presentations, we were thrilled to receive the news that a fresh project was on the horizon. This time, things were taking a unique turn from the established practices. We were gearing up to embark on a field research, delving into the lives of Snap-on's franchisees by observing their day-to-day activities up close.
Field notes: Franchise and a customer conducting business the old way, using pen and paper.
Field notes: Most locations on this franchisee's route lack good mobile signal, no wonder they use pen and paper to take new orders.
Offline mode
With all the insights gathered we go back to the drawing board and set the foundation for the first MVP for Connect, an application that will help franchises build promotions, take new orders and track them, above all is going to have an offline mode as well.
We got a lot of information to synthesize after 1 week of field research
Got the habits from the Franchises and used pen and paper to wireframe all the interactions for the promotional flow of the Connect application.
Part of the prototype that we prepared for our first round of usability.
Some screens from the first version of the Connect application.
Outcomes
The first version of the Connect application was released back in 2020 and it enabled the Franchisee to continue conducting business despite the lockdowns in the US during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Even though the initial adoption rate was not as expected due to some bad reputations of previous Snap-on mobile applications the seeds of approaching and developing future iterations or products having a human center process have taken root.
High above any metrics, this project changed the mindset of the digital division inside Snap-on on understanding the problem first instead of going head-on to solve it with assumptions that have no validation.
Snap-on's Connect in the app-storeA full case study presentation is available upon request.