IBS Consulting
Overview
Reduced turnaround time by 30% by designing a services portal that streamlined the operational flow for both clients and team members.
Approach
Researched user pain points and mapped the existing customer journeys.
Designed a multi-user portal with separate interfaces for each user group.
Tested designs for an intuitive user experience before implementation.
The problem(s)
IBS Consulting, a firm specializing in helping students and professionals with application documents, was facing significant operational challenges. Their manual system for managing service requests was inefficient, leading to:
Communication delays
Back-and-forth emails and phone calls created miscommunication and slowed down the process.
Slow turnaround time
It took 6 to 10 days to fulfill a single client request, which impacted client satisfaction.
Operational inefficiencies
Team members spent about 4 hours per week on manual tasks, such as tracking information.
My process
Research
My first initiative was to understand the existing service handling process. I conducted comprehensive interviews with key stakeholders and former clients to gain insights into their experiences.
I identified that the existing 15-step manual process could take up to 10 days to fulfill a client's service request.
I mapped out the different offerings and the necessary client information for each type.
Insights
I categorized the pain points into the following key areas:
Ideation
A solution would be to automate processes through a dedicated portal for clients and team members to manage services from start to finish.
Key features of the portal would include:
Automated request intake: A system to efficiently collect all necessary client details and documents from the start.
Automated consultant assignment: Based on the each team member's expertise and workload, we'd match the client's service with the right consultant.
Role-based dashboards: Separate interfaces were created for clients, consultants, managers, and administrators, ensuring each user had access to the information they needed to do their jobs effectively.
Integrated payments: A streamlined payment system was built directly into the portal, eliminating manual processing.
The new structure would allow clients to make service requests in 15 minutes or less and significantly reduce the need for back-and-forth communication.
Final designs
Client portal
Clients can make service requests, provide necessary details to consultants, check the service status, make payments, and receive notifications via the portal and email.
Team portal
I designed the team portal for three main roles: consultant, manager, and admin.
1️⃣ Consultants can view the services they have been assigned, update progress status, and message clients.
2️⃣ Managers can view service requests and change their status, manually reassign consultants and update progress status, message clients, and check payment status.
3️⃣ Admin has full access to requests, services, payments, team members, and offers. They can manually update statuses, reassign consultants, message clients, review payments, and manage offers and team members.
Testing
With the preliminary designs and prototypes on Figma finished, I reached out to 10 users (5 clients and 5 team members) and had them navigate the portal with minimal instructions. The goal was to analyze how easily they could get around the portal and gather any other feedback or opinions.
Although there weren't any major usability issues, their feedback helped tremendously in clarifying instructions and improving the copy across the portal, from notifications to tooltips.
Impact
👉 The average turnaround time for client requests was reduced by more than 30%.
👉 The team saved up to 4 hours of work per person each week, which they could reallocate to higher-value tasks.
👉 With a clear process and faster service, client satisfaction improved significantly.
Learnings
It's about enhancing the experience, not creating a brand new one: To create the portal, I had to understand the process in place.
Collaboration is key: Bringing engineers and other team members into the conversation early on smoothed the entire development process.
Our work doesn't end at delivery: Post-launch, educating users and conducting regular check-ins is essential for ensuring success and driving adoption.