VOLVO
Transforming VolvoCars.com into a direct ecommerce business.
UX Design / Research / Product Strategy / Visual design / Brand
BACKGROUND
In 2017, Volvo launched a pilot program for subscription cars, which it sold directly to customers in Germany. The success of that program helped set an even more ambitious goal of transforming volvocars.com into the main storefront globally, establishing direct relationships with its customers. In 2019 a new team which I was a part of was formed internally to achieve this mission, and help take the company 100% online.
OBJECTIVE
Design a seamless omnichannel experience that mirrors the ease and sophistication of driving a Volvo.
To do this, we faced a dual challenge: to modernize Volvo's website infrastructure across 113 countries, and to establish a comprehensive shopping experience that isn’t limited to just the web, but also extends to retail locations, mobile, and the in-car environment.
APPROACH
To achieve a digital transformation of Volvo’s business, and shift a brochure focused marketing site into a fully centralized ecommerce platform, we kicked off a user centric design process, following our triple diamond design process. This started with deep ethnographic research, following along customer car buying journeys both online and across retail locations for multiple brands.
During this research phase, we saw customers consistently struggle with the retail purchase moment. Lack of data, price confusion, locating inventory, and speed of transaction were major issues we saw consistently surface. And with more and more shopping experiences moving online, the consumer mental model had rapidly shifted and put Volvocars.com at the center of the future retail experience.
Research:
Our research also helped us hone in on part of the user journey that would allow us to focus our future efforts.
Moving into Design:
Based on our initial research which had uncovered customer pain points, identifying issues like inconsistent data and product information that was miss-aligned globally, we set out to establish our design hypothesis. With our findings we also made a product decision to fix the top of the funnel first which would have the largest impact to the total business, and start a migration to a headless infrastructure which would enable a greater set of tools demonstrated in our vision.
We crafted a mobile first shopping experience flexible enough to handle market legal variability that also delivered consistent streamlined product information. These designs and prototypes went through rounds of research and iteration which continues to this day.
WHERE THEY WERE
Not mobile friendly, globally misaligned digital footprint
WHERE THEY ARE NOW
Mobile first, global framework
Setting a Long Term Vision
Through visual storytelling in video format, we also crafted a future state of our digital experience that both addressed near term user problems as well as innovating on our current business models. This vision helped define new product areas that needed to be established, and technology that needed to be tied together to create a true omni-channel experience. It created a north star for teams to work towards, product areas to establish, and technology requirements that required a scalable tech foundation.
Develop:
In the Develop phase, design and development partnered closely together to rapidly build and deploy experiences that further saw testing and iteration. We also built in further tooling to learn from our initial design hypothesis, deploying Medalia to gather customer satisfaction and digital experience scores, AB testing tools, and google analytics.
Blending car configuration with inventory:
Following our user journey through the car ownership lifecycle, we focused next on improving car selection.
Knowing that users use both inventory feeds as well as car configurators in their shopping process to learn about features as well as delivery times and pricing, we built multiple experiences that allow customers to easily move between these very different experiences. A simplified, mobile first configurator allowed us to reach a broader audience. An integrated selection tool allowed us to surface related inventory or pre-built configurations. Both tools working together also enabled better digital lifecycle marketing by allowing users more relevant entry points into our site, and better ways of navigating to the products they desired.
Purchasing online:
One of the unique challenges of selling cars online is the high price point of a luxury vehicle. To help enable transactions of this magnitude, we created a broad set of digital offers that allow a user to finance a vehicle that best suits them. Not only does Volvo offer leasing, financing, and cash purchases, it also offers vehicle subscriptions, an automotive business model that it pioneered and still leads to this day. Integrating these financial offerings across our entire vehicle lineup was not a small undertaking, but has now unlocked the ability for users to shop by financing first. Another user demand seen early on.
Checking out with such large ticket items also requires unique features such as risk management, location pickup, and unique onboarding.
Creating a logged in experience to support users in their ongoing lifecycle was also critical. Not only did we build an online logged-in experience, but we integrated with Volvo-ID, which enables the ability for users to login to their mobile app and vehicle. This connected experience further unlocks Volvo’s ability to improve the customer relationship.
Shifting to B2B sales:
We leveraged Volvo ID to also help with our business partners purchasing large quantities of fleet vehicles. Building on top of the previous experiences, the team augmented the purchase journey to cater to company car buyers, the more common European car ownership model. Company car drivers also have a unique augmented experience that allows them to shop for the car they desire within the guidelines of their business sponsors constraints.
Broadening the Digital Horizon:
Recognizing the importance of contextual messaging and the innovative potential of in-car shopping, we extended our ecommerce platform beyond the web. This enables users to seamlessly engage, customize, and transact, whether on their mobile devices or within their Volvo vehicle, allowing them to further customize their Volvo experience.
Behind the scenes:
To power all of these digital touchpoints, we had to create our own product offer and pricing engine. This internal tool enables merchandisers within various markets to set, validate and distribute accurate data across dozens of markets, hundreds of products, and thousands of pages.
Develop:
Our last phase of development brought the work into the hands of the user where we are now gathering quantitative data and learning about our next iteration. The final effort culminated in a revitalized shopping experience, initially going live in the UK, where 100% of vehicle transactions are enabled by this shopping journey. Volvo's online presence is not just enhanced; it positions the brand as a leader in digital innovation. The seamless integration across platforms, especially the in-car shopping feature, places Volvo at the forefront of e-commerce evolution as they scale across markets.
REFLECTION
Crafting an exceptional online journey is about merging elegant design, profound user understanding, and technological adeptness. Through innovative vision work coupled with rigorous design processes and our unwavering commitment to user feedback, Volvo's e-commerce transition from traditional to transformative is setting an industry benchmark.
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