Client dashboard that raised NPS and decreased case resolution time
TurnKey managed thousands of vacation rental properties in 50+ markets around the US. In doing research on client sentiment, it came to light that clients were frustrated that 1) they couldn’t easily assign maintenance tasks to our team and 2) that they had no visibility into pending cases.
CompanyTurnKey Vacation RentalsYear2017Duration12 weeksRoleResearch, interviews, wireframes, high-fidelity mock-ups, design quality assurance
Project goals
Often projects have an opportunity to be a win for the clients and a win for the business - this was one of those. Autonomy is one of those key drivers of happiness - if we could create more autonomous clients, not only would they be happier but their autonomy would come with the benefit of reducing operational burden on TurnKey support.
Goal
Efficiency gains
Originally the KPI was related to the number of inbound phone calls to support - we ultimately decided that case resolution time inside the app was a better measure of effectiveness, aiming for a 10% lift
Goal
Improved CSAT
TurnKey clients were frustrated on a lack of visibility into work going on at their vacation rental, and their inability to create a case on their own. We hoped to get a 5% lift on NPS for cases created inside the new system.
Goal
Improved task assignment
The field operations team used Salesforce for task assignment, but it was clunky, expensive and inefficient on mobile devices
Phases of the project
This project started with a classic 'we need to build [X].' In this case, we had time to understand client needs and build requirements from there. We could shape the output to maximize solving a need uncovered during the research portion of the project.
Researching user needs
Conversations with internal staff and clients alike helped illuminate the issues we were seeing with client-generated work requests
Initial design exploration
Working through ideas, talking with clients, talking with execs, more design work
Refinement and confirmation
Working on hand-off documentation and prepping for development
Impact
"If it doesn't move the needle, rip it out"
Researching user needs
To start, I conducted phone interviews with TurnKey clients and operational staff
Research
Initial design
Refinement
Impact
Two sets of users emerged from interviews
TurnKey clients described a need to reduce ambiguity about events happening at their property; and a need for autonomy, so they could request work without needing to call and speak to their support representative.
Clients
I want visibility and ease
I own a vacation home which TurnKey manages. To request work means a phone call to TurnKey client support. I'd also like to easily know when work is scheduled to start on issues, and what the status is.
Staff
Help me be efficient
I'd love an easy way (not Salesforce, please) to view my tasks, communicate with clients, take pictures and know that information is automatically being passed to clients
TurnKey’s field operations team could use the app as a task management system and use it as a way to communicate asynchronously with customers.
Stakeholders at TurnKey saw an opportunity to become more efficient, to allow a smaller cadre of support agents to represent a larger number of clients.
A jobs-to-be-done framework helped organize and operationalize what we'd learned in research
Interview notes turned into a jobs-to-be-done spreadsheet. Shown above, organizing the needs of so-called 'backstage' actors (the field operations staff) who actually do the maintenance on the home.
Brian Bell
Product Manager
Team Feedback
Few people have the opportunity to work with a designer as passionate for customer success as Jon. I worked with Jon for over a year at TurnKey Vacation Rentals (now Vacasa) where we built innovative products that took vacation rental property management to the next level. He is a leader in his field and demonstrates an extensive knowledge of core design principles and best practices.
To buy or build?
TurnKey used Salesforce as a CRM, and the company looked into developing with Salesforce Lightning. The problem was the cost of seats was prohibitive, given the sheer number of field operations staff who would be using the system. Zendesk was an option we explored, but ultimately the needs of the team were so specific that no existing tool would yield significant improvements to the current process. These apps were excellent inspiration.
Definition by design
We made some fast sketches to get alignment with stakeholders and clients
Research
Initial design
Refinement
Impact
We had developed a relationship with some of our early interview participants, so we called them up and asked them to use an interactive version of the paper prototype. We could then take these to the COO (who was leading the project) and get additional feedback on our approach.
To move the needle on client satisfaction, we decided to focus on client needs first
Clients
I want visibility and ease
I own a vacation home which TurnKey manages. To request work means a phone call to TurnKey client support. I'd also like to easily know when work is scheduled to start on issues, and what the status is.
Staff
Help me be efficient
I'd love an easy way (not Salesforce, please) to view my tasks, communicate with clients, take pictures and know that information is automatically being passed to clients
'Research-lite' conversations with clients validated the direction we were taking the product
We jumped to high-fidelity work. Accurate contextual information gave this work more heft and credibility as we shopped our work to executives.
Flow charts doubled as part of a hand-off to the engineering team
As prototypes get more complex, they get less useful as a requirements artifact. Flow charts can be a helpful starting place for making sense of a proposed system.
Unified naming conventions helped during handoff
Practices like this help make small efficiencies across a design and engineering process.
Solidifying our approach
Sometimes well-executed basics can move the needle. This app gave clients a history of everything that was going on at their property, and it allowed them to easily ping support to kick off a case if something needed attention.
Research
Initial design
Refinement
Impact
Refinement continued with a 'Design QA' ceremony
This project kicked off a tradition at TurnKey. Rather than go back and forth in JIRA to resolve issues we saw in the product before launch, we decided it would be faster (and more fun) to all get in a room together, and to run quality assurance in person. Taco Donut Palace II was sure to be found at these events.
The impact of our work
The founder of Indeed once said that at Indeed, "If it doesn't move the needle, we ripped it out. Even if it was neutral - it's not worth the tech debt." That quote stuck with me.
Research
Initial design
Refinement
Impact
+32%
Improvement in resolution time for cases created on the project board
+9%
Increase in five-star ratings, for cases created on the project board
Success
Efficiency gains
Cases created inside the 'owner dashboard' had a staggering 32% faster case resolution time due to an increased cadence of communications between clients and our field support team.
Success
Improved CSAT
We had a nearly 10% bump in 5-star cases created in the dashboard, validating our initial findings that clients valued the autonomy and visibility that the application created.
Paused
Improved task assignment
Operational workflows were pushed until a later time, however, during the research phase we created a backlog of improvements to make for internal teams.
In this case, we had an unalloyed win on our hands. We took a 10% increase in 5-star reviews for tasks completed in the owner dashboard to be a measure of overall customer satisfaction. The next piece here would be to market this service to clients and get everyone on board. The bigger surprise was in case resolution time. In my opinion our clients and field operations staff were missing some crucial tools. We were able to deliver value, and they were able to resolve cases much, much faster.