TL;DR:
Iteratively designed a tool that helps sales reps and their customers better plan for the year.
Context:
In the agricultural space, rebates are critical to annual success. Manufactures build complex Marketing Programs that offer significant rebates that reward loyaty. For the manufacturers, these programs are major drivers of revenue. Within the sales channel, margins are razor thin, so distributors, retailers and farmers rely on these rebates. Often, they make up the only profits for the year; thus accurately predicting and maximizing the rebates is imperative.
But rebate programs can be incredibly complex. For manufacturers’ larger customers, estimating how much they’ll get back in a rebate is virtually impossible with traditional methods like pen and paper or even a spreadsheet filled with complicated formulas. They needed an easier way.
Process:
This project started with a simple idea: let sales reps enter their projected sales, then we’d run those figures through our calculation engine and spit out a magic number. The concept was simple enough so we threw together some concept art to illustrate our vision.
Our Product Owner had met with the customer and had worked out some of the path, so I started working on the less artsy, more nitty-gritty elements of the design. My guiding principle was to keep the actual estimating process as simple as possible. Much like Quicken Loans/Rocket Mortgage’s “Push button, get mortgage” campaign, I wanted it to feel easy. Thus, I proposed ideas like automatically importing prior year sales, having a single field to adjust, only showing products they actually buy, and more.
While it certainly wasn’t a finished product, I felt the design was adequately simple. Other complexities and features were requested, but it was an acceptable first pass.
As they say, “No plan survives contact with the… client” or something like that. My aim for simplicity was upended when the client came back with a whirlwind of “needed” attributes, functionalities, visualizations and more. While our initial mockups were perhaps too simple, the pendulum swung back with great force, obligating a ton of added complexity. It had a lot going on. I’m still not sure I understand it all, but it’s what was requested and ultimately what was built.
Once the beta version had been in use a little, we started talking to users. Sales reps were reporting positive outcomes and their customers were excited to get accurate estimates. Feedback was generally positive.
We approached iteration with a mind towards genericizing the product: making it simpler and less unique to our one client, so other clients could leverage the tool and gain the same benefits. To guide this, we talked with users about the pain points.
Every user we spoke to indicated complexity as a pain point. Their complaints were veiled – they were used to working with massive spreadsheets, so this was still an upgrade – but they all indicated that they did not in fact need all the attributes and functions that their boss – the client – had required. By reducing some of that visual clutter, we made room for functionality users said they wanted.
It was at this point that we pivoted from the declared need and began to dig into understanding the root challenges. We took some of the insight we had gleaned, hid some of the “extras” and instead focused on the benefits instead of the process.
We took most of the “nice to have” functions and moved them to an expandable menu, which gave us room to blow out the core content and design some more helpful visuals. These redesigned graphs turned the site from a “neat tool” to an essential planning application that helped users visually gauge their progress.
With this shift, users were able to more quickly and successfully estimate their rebates and assess what they needed to do to maximize it.
Result:
For sales reps that used this tool, our client was able to realize a 3% lift in sales. More significantly, sales reps found that when their customers used the tool collaboratively, those customers purchased 19% more!
View and Click Through Prototype
The design and development process took months of whiteboarding, arguing, iteration, refinement, discussing with users and more, but ultimately ended up in a really good place. While no part of this was easy, we all learned a ton. This tool is just the first piece in a much larger toolset, so I’m excited to see how we build out the rest of the application.
About the Prototype: The prototype is designed to illustrate how changes to your purchase numbers will impact your rebate. To move smoothly through it, try clicking:
- Create New Estimate
- Sioux Falls (it’s highlighted for you)
- Select a Program > Midwest Program 2018
- Start Estimating
- Click the product values for “Killshot XT” – it will increase your units by 6%. Notice how the “Herbicide” bar on the right grows!
- Click the product values for “Anthex 64 Oz” – by buying an extra 25 units, you meet your herbicide goal!
- Click to add 5 units of “Spartec Maxx” – that’s enough to meet the “Insecticide” goal.
- Scroll to the bottom and Calculate your Estimate.
- Your Rebate Estimate jumps from $3,300 to $6,190. That’s 2x the rebate on only about 6% increased spend!
- You can click “Finalize” then “Save,” which sends you back to Account homepage. Your “New Rebate Estimate” will appear as an active estimate.