Confidential
Due to the nature of this work, I can only share details and examples that were released publicly with our clients.
I also designed the future vision for our desktop SaaS B2B platform, but that info is confidential (unless you want to start paying to use SMG's software 😉)
The progress we made
Rebuilding an entire company is a lofty goal that takes time. To give a general sense for the project’s scope and our approach, here’s the process my team followed over the course of ~12 months...
Naming our core company problems
Targeting ideal personas
Defining a future vision strategy
Mapping out journeys to find problem spaces
Leveraging past expertise to inform our approach
Creating a first draft concept to meet the need
Proving feasibility with machine learning prototypes
Planning how to test outstanding assumptions
Interviewing ideal personas
Synthesizing feedback into actionable themes
Evolving our designs to solve opportunities
Running actual users through tasks
Focusing more on key business questions
Mapping business answers to a single architecture
Voting on key features to prioritize
Testing the solution with our own employees
Prioritizing critical updates
Narrowing scope & initial release…
Looking back – We ended up with a compelling vision that clients wanted, but I quickly learned how unrealistic it was to propose such a large engineering effort… Since then, I'm more cautious about scope and advocate for small but consistent improvements over time.
Natural feedback collection
chat time (vs surveys)
75.8% faster
chat data (vs surveys)
6x more feedback
Problems for users:
Client surveys often get few responses because of how long they are
Our client's customers told us surveys ask for too much data, making it feel impersonal and intrusive: "…it's like a black hole, will anyone even read it?"
Approaches we tried:
We tested shorter surveys, but those yielded even less quality data
So we tested a lightweight Wizard of Oz chat interface with customers
Customers said the chat was more natural, quicker, & respected their time
Solution we landed on:
The chat worked best. Not only did customers prefer it, but they left more feedback that was better quality because it felt welcoming & clear.
Easy access to VoC for managers
Easy to read (vs Old)
4.5/5 (+22%)
cognitive load (vs old)
31% reduction
Problems for users:
Location managers read all their comments, but we heard the old interface was cluttered and hard to read
Managers also told us customer feedback info was missing or hard to find
Approaches we tried:
We started with a hyper-simple view that only showed comments
Then we considered an AI summary, but since managers already read each comment, a summary felt repetitive to them
We also helped divert blame against SMG by showing in the UI that missing contact info was because customers opted out (and not an SMG error)
Solution we landed on:
In the end, we added icons & emphasized progressive disclosure: only showing the key info first, with the rest easy to access a click or two deeper.
Actionable insights for front-line teams
Insight cards (vs old)
10x less to read
New UI (vs old)
"Perfect for coaching"
Problems for users:
A key part of a manager's job is coaching their team (to celebrate & improve)
In the old app, key insights were spread across data tables on many pages, so most managers ended up reading comments manually (wasted time)
Approaches we tried:
Initially we tried to enhance the app home page, but our front-line personas said it was too overwhelming to keep focus
We then created a detail page for scores, with cards for each key insight
But another round of user testing showed Client Ops didn't want their managers distracted, so we created minimized versions of each card
Solution we landed on:
The final page was loved by our clients. Minimized by default, it showed only with the most important info to take action on, but still let them dig deeper.
Presenting to the company
To start the year, I was able to present our work to the whole company. Below is the opening slide as well as comments from both external Clients and internal Employees as to how impactful this work was.
Presentation
30 mins
Attendants
157
What our employees said...
Great work Tobias Reichert! ...clearly increased the audience's confidence in how we're making decisions in Product.
👏 3
💯 2
❤️ 1
This has been great. It provides great confidence into our future product developments. Exciting!
🙌 1
Not a question...but thank you for sharing this! It's so cool to see all the work and thought that goes into this.
❤️ 3
👍 2
Great session, Tobias Reichert Honestly that needed to be part of Monday's keynote.
❤️ 1
✅ 1
Its really exciting to see all the incredible work that has gone into making some of these amazing developments. Thanks Tobias and thanks a lot to the whole team on this!!
👍 1
Loved the back and forth work with all levels of users/decision makers—so critical to not work in a vacuum.
❤️ 1
10/10 storytelling Tobias!!
➕ 4
What clients said...
“This concept is proof we should still be partnered with SMG...”
“Currently, we use multiple different data pools to get this information... Having all of this data on hand in one app is fantastic”
“It gives you a quick look and you get a basic idea of the issue without having to dive deeper.”