Optimising the Customer Experience.
Meet The Client.
As part of our Storyworks Project for Centennial, we were connected with Jenn the owner of Sable & Sage, a small business in Peterborough, Ontario that creates handmade home decor.
During our initial project meetings with our client, we worked through the scope of the project, and her expectations so that we could get a clearer picture of what we were going to deliver to her.
For Sable & Sage, their primary focus was on establishing a website that can optimise the customer experience for their clients, who currently purchase products off of their Instagram solely.
However, Annie, Brenna, Peggy and I felt quite passionately about our client, and we set out to create a social media and engagement strategy along with the re-designing of the app, as we felt that in order to truly give our client what they need, we needed to adapt both into our deliverables.
The Issue.
The main problem we set out to solve was to create an engaging platform where Sable & Sage's clients can easily purchase their products and sign up for their workshops. As they were in the process of expanding their business, the need for a website was paramount. Moreover, since their services were entirely on their social media platform, we felt it was necessary to focus on creating a social media strategy that goes along with the newly designed website.
Competition & Opportunity.
We conducted a competitive analysis of some of Sable & Sage's main competitors in order to understand the unique opportunities that we could meet through our prototype and engagement strategy. The competitor analysis then helped us inform our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats Analysis.
Sable & Sage's Competitors
Competitive Analysis for Sable & Sage
Who are the users? What do they need?
We conducted a user survey of 17 customers that had previously heard of Sable & Sage in some capacity through their social media accounts.
Our survey helped us realise that the main needs of our users were:
a) Being informed about the product quality and use of materials.
b) Being able to make an informed choice with the help of reviews.
Keeping these needs in mind we set out to create our user personas and user journeys based on the user's goals that emerged from the survey.
Through our survey, we found that 91.7% of Sable & Sage's current audience is female and out of those 82.4% said that they intend to purchase a product like the one Sable & Sage offers.
Ideation and Design.
Before we began designing the prototype, we created a site map based on the user journeys and personas we had created and conducted a content audit of the existing prototype made by past students. During this stage, we also created a style guide for the website, that adhered to the mood and tone of Sable & Sage's products.
The Prototype.
Once we had our site map and had identified the gaps in the current website design, we divided the various pages of the website and began designing the prototype. I was in charge of creating the user's cart and check-out page for the website and for auditing the content to ensure it was seamless across our prototype.
Beyond Prototyping.
As mentioned earlier, it was always our intention to create an engagement strategy for our client. To do this we conducted a social media trend analysis and found the best times to post on Sable & Sage's social platforms. Moreover, we compared Sable & Sage's social media profiles to their competitors and developed a product photography guide and a social media plan to help our client gain traction from their existing social accounts.
One of our client's main concerns was being able to adopt our designs by herself onto her WIX site, so as a bonus we also created a Website Guide that could aid her in the future once our project culminated.
Learnings.
Working with Jenn and my team really pushed me out of my comfort zone, and helped me cultivate project management skills that I would not have achieved otherwise. Working in a collaborative environment moved me to improve my quality of work, and the way in which I interact and communicate within a team. One of the biggest learnings for me perhaps was that the deliverables and objectives of your project can constantly change according to the client's needs. Overcoming these challenges, however, is what helps us connect to our clients, and is ultimately the driving force behind delivering a project that goes beyond its initial scope.