QDM stories: Mobile application
QDM stories: Mobile application
Go big by making things simple: QDM connects Sales to an important customer segment
Sales professionals are key to acquiring and satisfying FedEx customers, and small and medium businesses are one of our most important segments. A team came together to design an elegant yet simple solution to make it easier for Sales team members to connect with prospective and current small and medium business customers.
To do so, the team used Design ABLE and Quality Driven Management (QDM), the innovative FedEx approach that builds on leading quality methodologies. The Design ABLE approach, which fuses QDM with design thinking, is often best for products and services that need to be created from scratch. “It starts with identifying unmet needs, and we soon determined that Sales needed customer information at their fingertips in order to communicate more quickly and regularly with their customers,” says John Parkinson, manager, Solutions.
Launch, test, repeat
The team decided to focus on designing and developing a first-of-its-kind mobile application for Sales professionals. Using Design ABLE, they uncovered pain points that Sales professionals and customers were encountering, determined an experience that would be preferable, and developed the app in rapid iterations.
Within three days of the first iteration, the team was able to move from framing the problem to creating early prototypes of a working mobile application. They continued to test and refine the tool as their understanding of users’ needs deepened. “The design sprint allowed us to not only listen to the users but to involve them in the design process. They had a chance to craft how the app would work,” says Chris Suhoza, vice president, Sales.
Easier connection yields results
The team measured how much the application was adopted and used, as well as gathered user feedback, to measure efficiency gains and revenue increases. They found it delivered results in a short amount of time.
After a successful launch, Sales increased the number of customer visits scheduled and completed while on the road. Customer leads and scheduled customer calls have also grown.
Thanks to the team, Sales professionals now can do more for customers in less time and can access the right information about their customers to be better prepared and productive. “The Sales team started using the application the day they got it on their phones. The app was so easy to use because we included sales professionals in the design process; it worked the way they work,” says Dan Mullally, senior vice president, Sales.
QDM for the win
QDM helps team members simplify the way they work to deliver best-in-class experiences for our customers.