Carputty Customer Experience

I led customer experience improvements for an auto-financing application. Collaboration between developers and service agents helped enhance the customer experience while ensuring internal alignment and buy-in.

Problem

Customers struggled with understanding Carputty's auto-financing application. Difficulty finding available help resources led to confusion and mistakes. This lack of clarity resulted in application delays and higher drop-off rates.

A confusing process contributed to inefficiency and customer drop-off.

15% of customer calls

Percentage of customer calls attempting to communicate between the dealer and Carputty.

25% of vehicle cancellations

Number of vehicles cancelled due to customer typos or misunderstandings about Carputty's vehicle requirements.

Solution

Status Banners

Status banners help customers instantly know if any action is needed to move their application forward or if there’s an error to address.

Dynamic Resources

An informational card on the dashboard updates based on the customer's progress, offering relevant tips and answers to FAQs at each stage of the application.

Prefilled Vehicle Details

Vehicle VIN is used to automate form entry, reduce errors, and generate a preliminary funding statement, minimizing manual input from the customer.

Customer Next Steps

Informational screens within the application flow guide customers on what actions we’re taking, what they should do next, which documents to prepare, and when to expect communication from their dealer.

Dealer Portal

A document upload portal for dealer partners streamlines the process and reduces confusing back-and-forth communication between customers, dealers, and Carputty representatives.

Research

Metrics & Service Agent Feedback

I leveraged existing data to better understand the problem, analyzing FAQ traffic to pinpoint where customers sought answers and reviewing service agent call data to identify recurring customer pain points.

Service Mapping

Using data, I highlighted key moments in the application where customers commonly struggled and generated intervention ideas based on these insights.

Design

Scoping & Prioritization

I worked closely with developers to assess technical limitations and created a feature matrix based on UX impact and development effort. Feedback from the product manager helped align our priorities with current initiatives.

Wireframing

I brainstormed and and gathered feedback from the product team and our service agents, particularly focusing on the structure and content of help resources.

Recruiting customers for interviews was costly and time consuming. Since many feature updates were spread across the application flow, I waited until the first round of features were released to conduct usability sessions.

Transition Between Design Systems

At this point in time, our software was stuck between two design systems, adding technical complexity.
‍
I collaborated with developers, product leadership, and operational leadership to plan the phased transition from the current interface to the future layout and ensure branding consistency.

Reflection

This project required significant collaboration, not only with developers but also with service agents and other stakeholders across the company. The key challenge was balancing the need to provide customers with timely information without overwhelming them, while also addressing usability issues that couldn’t be solved with more instructions alone. It was essential to understand the current process and the needs of all parties involved.

Frequent check-ins with service agents provided valuable insights into customer experiences and helped build their buy-in. Similarly, close coordination with developers helped identify edge cases and establish realistic timelines.