MYCUSTOMER APP – Eman's Portfolio

Client: Mary Kay Global
Industry: Beauty, E-commerce
Project: Mobile App Redesign
Challenge: Redesign a clunky, outdated app to streamline appointment management, enable real-time communication, and provide actionable analytics to empower Independent Beauty Consultants (IBCs) in growing their businesses.

The Challenge

The old version of the MyCustomer App was supposed to support Mary Kay’s IBCs in managing customers, scheduling appointments, and tracking sales. However, it had become more of a burden than a solution. Appointment management was clunky and error-prone, there were no real-time communication tools, and the analytics dashboard lacked depth—forcing many IBCs to resort to manual tracking.

Without seamless tools, consultants struggled to stay productive, engage with customers efficiently, or make data-driven decisions. We needed to redesign the app from the ground up, focusing on what IBCs truly needed to grow their businesses.

The Process

Our Approach: Research-Driven Redesign

We kicked off the project with user research and in-depth interviews with both new and seasoned IBCs. This allowed us to get firsthand insights into how IBCs worked, what frustrated them about the old app, and which features they truly valued.

We built detailed personas, such as:

“Sara the Seasoned IBC” – A long-time user who needed more in-depth analytics to track sales trends.
“Megan the Newbie” – A tech-savvy newcomer who found the old appointment system overwhelming, causing missed opportunities.

Empathy mapping allowed us to capture the emotional and functional needs of our users. For instance:

Sara’s frustration: Shallow analytics limited her ability to forecast product trends.
Megan’s stress: She found scheduling difficult, leading to missed appointments with key clients.

The goal was simplification—not adding unnecessary features, but streamlining workflows so IBCs could focus on building their businesses, not fighting with their tools.

Competitive Analysis: Learning From The Market

Before diving into development, we conducted a competitive analysis of similar business management tools used by other direct sales companies and small businesses. This helped us identify best practices and uncover gaps in our existing app.

Key Insights from the Competitive Analysis:

Real-time Communication: Competitors integrated messaging systems that were accessible from any screen, improving response times.
Our Response: We implemented persistent chat, accessible throughout the app.
Analytics Tools: Leading platforms offered interactive dashboards with advanced filters, enabling more granular insights.
Our Response: We developed a customizable analytics dashboard with export capabilities.
Appointment Management: Competitors excelled at integrating personal and professional calendars, minimizing scheduling conflicts.
Our Response: We implemented a seamless calendar sync with color-coded reminders.

This analysis ensured our redesign wasn’t just catching up with competitors—it positioned the MyCustomer App as a leader in the industry by delivering a superior user experience.

Balancing Short -Term and Long-Term Goals

Our agile approach allowed us to balance short-term fixes with long-term scalability.

Short-Term Focus: Immediate Impact

Will calendar sync reduce missed appointments quickly?
Can real-time chat improve engagement immediately?
Is the new UI intuitive for both new and seasoned users?

Long-Term Planning: Future-Proofing

Can the platform scale as Mary Kay’s business grows?
How do we ensure continued alignment between product and marketing teams?
Will future analytics updates remain relevant to IBC needs?

The Solution

Simplified Appointment Management

We redesigned the appointment management feature from the ground up, focusing on intuitive navigation and reducing the number of steps needed to schedule, edit, or approve appointments. By integrating a calendar sync option, we also made it easier for IBCs to manage both their personal and professional schedules in one place.

Real-Time Communication:

Recognizing the importance of timely interactions, we introduced a real-time chat feature. This allowed IBCs to communicate instantly with customers, addressing questions and concerns as they arose. The chat feature was designed to be accessible from anywhere within the app, ensuring that IBCs could provide responsive service without being tied to a specific workflow.

Enhanced Analytics Dashboard:

We developed a comprehensive analytics dashboard that offered IBCs detailed insights into sales performance, customer behavior, and product trends. This tool empowered IBCs to make data-driven decisions, enabling them to adjust their strategies on the fly based on real-time data.

Email Request Management Interface

Feature: The redesigned email management system centralizes communication, showing clear conversation threads, recent activity, and contextual customer details.
Impact: IBCs can follow up seamlessly with customers, enhancing service quality and maintaining personalized interactions.

Activity Log Overview

Feature: The activity log now provides a chronological view of all customer interactions, including emails, texts, and chat sessions.
Impact: This holistic overview helps IBCs stay informed on customer interactions at a glance, reducing the chances of overlooked follow-ups and ensuring consistent communication.

Transaction History Display

Feature: The transaction history page showcases past purchases, complete with product images and itemized totals.
Impact: IBCs can review customer purchase patterns quickly, aiding in product recommendations and personalized sales strategies.

Contact Creation and Management

Feature: The contact management interface allows easy entry and updating of customer details, with options for multiple email addresses and phone numbers.
Impact: IBCs can keep customer information accurate and comprehensive, simplifying outreach and marketing efforts.

Salesfloor Integration

We also integrated Sales Floor Connect and the Sales Floor IBC App into the MyCustomer App, giving IBCs an all-in-one solution. This integration lets them merchandise their pages, create looks to send to customers, communicate seamlessly, and connect to social media. It also provides tools for task management, KPI tracking, and insights into customer behavior, making the app a comprehensive business tool.

Training and Onboarding

Even the best app won’t get used if people don’t know how to use it. That’s why we put a lot of effort into developing a thorough training and onboarding program. We created interactive tutorials tailored to different user personas—like a quick-start guide for new IBCs like Megan and advanced tips for seasoned users like Sara. We also made video walkthroughs and hosted live webinars to ensure everyone felt confident with the new features from day one.

Alternative Solutions with Pros and Cons

We explored several different approaches to solving the challenges faced by IBCs. Here’s what we considered:

Modular App Design:
- Pros: This would allow IBCs to customize their app experience, turning features on or off based on what they actually use. It could reduce clutter and make the app more user-friendly for each individual.
- Cons: Developing and maintaining a modular app is complex and could lead to confusion if users aren’t sure which features they need. It also risks making the app feel disjointed.
Integrated CRM System:
- Pros: A full-fledged CRM could have provided powerful tools for managing customer relationships, tracking sales, and automating marketing tasks, potentially driving significant business growth.
- Cons: This would have required a major investment of time and resources, and it might have overwhelmed IBCs who aren’t used to advanced software, leading to lower adoption rates.
Web-Based App Instead of Native Mobile App:
- Pros: A web-based app would be accessible from any device with a browser, offering more flexibility. It also simplifies updates and maintenance since there’s no need for platform-specific development.
- Cons: The user experience wouldn’t be as smooth as a native mobile app, especially in terms of performance and offline capabilities. Plus, the lack of native features like push notifications could reduce engagement.

User Testing

Key Findings and Adjustments:

Appointment Management: Users wanted clearer reminders.
Adjustment: We added customizable push notifications.

Live Chat: Users initially struggled to access chat mid-task.
Adjustment: We implemented a persistent floating chat button.

Analytics Dashboard: Users requested more flexibility.
Adjustment: We introduced advanced filters and export options.

The Results

The redesign of the MyCustomer App delivered significant improvements across multiple key areas:

The enhanced analytics dashboard led to a 20% boost in IBCs’ ability to make data-driven decisions, empowering them with better inventory management and more focused sales strategies. Additionally, new communication tools fostered stronger team collaboration, resulting in a 15% increase in productivity. This improved connectivity helped IBCs feel more supported, creating a more cohesive and engaging work environment.

What Did I Learn

This project highlighted how crucial simplicity is, especially for users with varying tech skills. Streamlining processes, like appointment management, had a huge impact, and continuous user feedback helped us make meaningful improvements. Real-world testing, like trying the live chat on a busy day, revealed key tweaks that made the app much more effective and user-friendly.

Things We Would Do Differently:

Accessibility was considered, but in hindsight, I would have pushed to incorporate even more rigorous accessibility testing and standards from the beginning. This could have included more extensive user testing with individuals who have different abilities to ensure that all features are not just compliant but genuinely usable for everyone. This would not only make the app more inclusive but also potentially open it up to a wider audience of IBCs who may have been underserved by the original design.

Key Takeaways

Contextual Simplicity is Key: Streamlining complex processes, like the appointment management system, was far more impactful than simply adding new features. By focusing on reducing cognitive load and minimizing the steps needed to complete key tasks, we were able to significantly enhance usability and reduce friction, especially for less tech-savvy users.

Design-Development Alignment is Crucial: Involving the development team early in the design phase helped us avoid the common pitfalls of design-developer misalignment. By collaborating closely, we were able to anticipate and address technical constraints early on, ensuring that our ambitious designs were both feasible and scalable.

Personalized Onboarding Drives Adoption: While our onboarding process was solid, we realized that a more segmented approach—tailoring onboarding experiences to different user personas—could have driven even higher adoption rates. For example, creating a specific onboarding flow for advanced users that skipped the basics and focused on the more powerful features would have provided a more engaging start and encouraged deeper exploration of the app’s capabilities.