BACKGROUND

Before a vehicle enters the daily sale on Motorway, customer sale agents need to calculate prep costs to account for the vehicle's condition. The process was manual, time-consuming, and inconsistent across the board. To add to the lack of consistency, there was a range of how prep was interpreted. Only a top-level prep cost was captured with no data on how it is broken down. Some agents referred to a spreadsheet with all the itemised costs, a specific communication channel around the topic (where feedback isn't always instant), or relied on memory. All of which are external to the dashboard they use.

THE CHALLENGE

The breadth of the complete prep cost list made it complex to automate fully. However, we wanted to create an MVP to help automate the process of calculating prep to aid with the agent workflow, better capture that data and support consistent application of prep costs across all vehicle enquiries. To start, we want to allow agents to efficiently calculate the prep cost for a vehicle enquiry to get an updated reserve price because the vehicle may have damage and missing components - the most frequently occurring items.

Left: extensive spread sheet list of prep cost items. Right: initial explorations on integrating the quick wins items from the inventory within the dashboard.

APPROACH

Working closely with the product manager and CS team, I began by interviewing our users, the agents, to understand the most common prep items. This helped us identify the quick wins and break the project into phases. We also identified which prep items could be nested under existing dashboard sections and the required expression and value (i.e., quantity, Y/N, etc.). This would aid in creating a more contextual experience - so the prep costs could be captured automatically as agents filled out relevant fields and inputs. We kept our users in the loop, iterating and interviewing them based on their feedback and pain points. 

A snippet from an ideation session involving representation from departments involved - PM, engineering, and the sales team

THE OUTCOME

As a first proof of concept, the following was released:

Prep summary that is built into the dashboard

When the agent opens a vehicle page, if no prep has been identified on the vehicle, they will see the summary sidebar explaining this, an input box to add ‘Manual prep cost,’ the ‘Current total’ of the prep, and the ‘Projected reserve price based on the ‘Guide price’ minus the ‘Current total.’

As the agent adjusts the vehicle page, the summary will start displaying prep, where identified, and also mark the field on the vehicle page that has been included in the summary.

Identifying prep on existing vehicle fields

A handful of existing fields where the item(s) was flagged as missing or leased are automatically calculated on the page and marked with a visual indicator that there is prep cost associated with it.

Damage for scuffed alloys

Agents can mark individual images of alloys that have scuffs using the tick box below the image, and it will adjust the count automatically. This will automatically calculate the prep cost in the sidebar based on the wheel type.

Manual prep

For all other prep factors, agents will have to go through the normal process, add the total of those additional costs to the ‘Manual prep cost’ field 

IMPACT

• Improved the agent workflow by automating the process, making the application more accurate and consistent across all vehicle enquiries

• Reduced the time (10min) for agents to calculate the prep costs, allowing enquiries to progress to the next stage faster

• Provided a breakdown of prep recorded, allowing for visibility across different workflows within the call centre

• Contributed to a growing database of how prep cost is broken down to get more accurate data and averages across all items, categories, and vehicle types

• Internal sales teams are more empowered to serve their customers by having one step of their job simplified regardless of their tenure