Explore how Daniel Vogt, from Global Labels and Packaging at Vista, exposed a problem area in the DIY design flow, helping the product team devise a better customer experience.
Vista is always eager to improve customer experiences and smooth workflows to deliver the best products using the best processes. We keep updating with the latest technology trends to improve our product designs and work processes and eliminate all major blockers in the customer journey.
Die-cut sticker designs have become immensely popular recently. They can accentuate products and make designs stand out with their unique shape. It is a high-value form of printing that can create any sticker of any shape and size with precision. However, given the design intricacies, customers looking to get these custom-shaped stickers typically require waiting to edit and approve their designs before they can be pushed to manufacturing.
We realized that this long wait hurt the customer experience and decided to create a new die-cut stickers design experience while ensuring that the new feature yielded better value. Our die-cut stickers DEX (Design Experience) experiment was highly effective and led to a positive customer experience.
What exactly is the new design experience?
At Vista, products such as banners, mugs, posters, flyers, and T-shirts are popular among our customers. Utilizing our DIY Studio, customers can design merchandise on their own. However, for the die-cut stickers, the experience was disconnected.
By leveraging data analytics, we realized that the existing design flow that needs an additional review step is a significant factor in its poor performance compared to other Vista products. When a customer requests die-cut stickers, our design team must manually generate the cut line to prevent manufacturing errors.
We decided to transform this process and enable the DIY experience to evaluate if it could enhance customer experience and increase conversion rate. With the new Die-cut DEX, the cutline for the uploaded image gets generated automatically to create a sticker. Customers can now explore different sizes and shapes with a design in mind.
Customers looking to get die-cut stickers now get two choices:
DIY Flow
Customers can choose this option if they want to curate the design independently. It will direct them to the page with different options for the cutline. Then, they can choose their preferred shape, outline precision, and other factors and finalize the design.
Design with Help Flow
If customers need help from a designer, they can choose this option. Our designers can create different layout proposals, and we can send them back within 3 hours or less.
Why the new design experience?
Utilizing the power of data and analytics, we found that the die-cut stickers design completion rate was low compared to other Vista products. We identified a significant issue with the Design with Help flow.
Once the customer decided on the product from the Product page, the design was submitted to the designer. This design was then sent to the customer via email. In case of any changes, the customer had to request edits, and the design had to go through the same loop until the customer finally approved it.
Even though there was a 3-hour SLA, an industry standard, it was a considerable blocker in customers progressing through the Product page. We found that out of 100 customers, only 28% made it to the Submit Design Page. And only 14% of those customers submitted the design. Subsequently, only a few designs were approved, and even fewer were added to the cart.
We conducted the experiment based on the hypothesis that adding a do-it-yourself (DIY) experience similar to our standard DIY Studio would solve the issue due to U&G (Upload & Go) being a problem overall. However, this issue was significant, so we partnered with the design tech team to introduce this new experience.
What results did we get?
We expect massive lifts in the Conversion Rate (CR). But since this is a new technology, we needed to stress-test first to ensure the new process could handle the load. Also, we required data on the bugs before thoroughly experimenting in larger markets.
The experiment results showed that the die-cut conversion rate tripled in the EU and doubled in North America, with a statistically significant lift in gross profit. The higher conversion comes from the fact that the customer is involved throughout the flow. This increases conversion as the continuous flow never breaks. There is an immediate response.
Within the Die-cut DEX, we have still enabled the U&G flow. Customers can still click the “We’re here to help” button if they need help with the designs.
How has this change transformed the customer experience?
With the traditional U&G flow, customers had to wait for the designer to finish the design. Also, customers needed to move the design back and forth in case of any edits, delaying the process further.
With the new DIY flow, customers no longer have to rely on the designers and can generate designs with precise cutlines all by themselves in seconds.
This new feature also allows customers to request design assistance if they need expert support. One of the critical aspects of this new approach is that the pricing remains the same. At the same cost, customers can design stickers in less time.
How the DIY design flow is helping us
The DIY flow is a market differentiator. With a basic implementation of such a studio, our customers could get better products. With this new approach, we differentiate ourselves from our competitors in terms of standards and improving the overall customer experience. A significant benefit for our internal stakeholders is that the progression data is cleaner and easier to gather and interpret.
The new initiative also drives our customization game to the next level. There are plenty of options available to choose from, and we present all of them to the customers. We can amend it accordingly. The process is more immediate.
The future scope
Vista’s top priority has always been our customers. We aim to implement the best processes and design more pleasing products to serve our customers better. We plan to expand the custom shape studio (DEX) to custom-shaped signage products. Besides, updates are regularly made to improve the performance of existing technology.