How a leading floor manufacturer company was able to create a completely new marketing acumen with the help of an easy-to-use customer centric mobile app solution developed on the emerging technology of AR/VR.

Company Background

A leading floor manufacturer from US wanted to redefine ‘customer experience’ by providing a digital platform for its customers to virtually decide the ‘look and feel’ of their products. The need arose due to the company’s decision to explore unorthodox marketing tools, to overcome the struggles to break into mom and pop designer stores and also increase direct sales to consumers. Saransh was hired to bring this idea to life through the help of service design. The Saransh team worked with different agencies from multiple continents to bring the entire project to fruition.

At the time of the inception of the project, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality were new concepts and very few companies had the capabilities to undertake a project of such nature. The Saransh team underwent multiple brainstorming sessions with the client, to perfect the idea and created the vision for the same. The outcomes decided were as follows:

Roadmap

Inspire

To inspire customers with hundreds of beautifully designed rooms across different styles.

Seamless Experience

A seamless customer experience, where the transition from physical stores to digital setups would not hamper the customer’s expectations.

Quick Checkout

Customers should be able to complete checkout quickly.

Collaboration

Features like connectivity to social media would be made available for customers to share their experience and collaborate for referrals.

Fast & Simple

Provide fast and simple shopping experience for customers, rather than complex decision making and multi-step checkout process.

Engage in Process

To sub-consciously engage customers in the buying process, which would help the company to establish a better experience and increase sales revenue.

Bridge the Gap

Between the digital and brick & mortar store. (A study by Deloitte found that digital influences 40% of retail brick and mortar store visits.)

Budget Clarity

Provide complete transparency to keep customers informed about the approximate cost while they underwent the process.

The Saransh Solution

The project was one of the most exciting ones for Saransh as the idea was deemed way ahead of its time. The Saransh team not only had to ideate the expected outcomes, but take a step-by-step approach to ensure the link remain intact throughout the project. The magnitude of the project also led us to work parallel to multiple vendors from across the globe and the combined expertise of the teams is what helped in carrying out the project successfully.

To begin with, the Saransh team conducted Contextual Interview sessions with Customers, Designers and Store Owners within their own comfort settings, to understand their expectations, pain points and past experiences. This was followed with Stakeholder interviews, followed with market surveys and competitor analysis. Different personas were created to understand how various personalities would find their experiences. The whole project also had to be made user-friendly for the end- users as it would be a new experience for them, of using AR technology through their mobile phones.

Based on data which was received through these sessions and analysis, the Saransh team designed and developed a VR-based, user-friendly mobile application, for iOS and android, with separate logins for customers and business representatives. The entire designing and flow of the project was developed in-house by the Saransh team, before collaborating with vendors for its functional development.

Designing

The designing of the application was undertook based on a customer-centric approach. The decided flowchart was created, as to how the expected flow of information would be, and wireframes were created accordingly. Microsoft Azure was used to build an end-to-end product experience including page flows and interaction. These prototypes were later used to perform usability tests. This was followed with engineering a Visual Design Language, developed as a deliverable, to standardize the use of UI patterns across the app..

Tools: Sketch, InVision, Axure RP

Design Methodology: Design Thinking / User Centric

Development

The development of the project was undertaken in collaboration with a Europe based company and Saransh provided the necessary guidance and support to the off- shore developers. The flow which was charted in the designing stage was broken up in stages and each stage was carried out as was deemed fit.

Technologies Used: Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore SDKs, Java REST API, SQL Server

The Outcome

The mobile application helped the enterprise to penetrate larger markets and increase their digital presence. It was successful in eliminating the major pain-points of the customers, including time restrictions, ease of decision-making and financial constraints. It also led to the company to having increased goodwill amongst their customers, thus improving their customer loyalty.

The customer experience showed a record increase, with them being more interactive and excited about their virtual experience.
The business was able to target more customers, provide better services and streamline their sales channels.
With the data acquired and the analytics in place, the management was able to take well-informed decisions in planning their future, which was seen in their rapid expansion plans in the days that followed.