{"id":683,"date":"2019-10-24T12:12:05","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T12:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidpando.com\/pages\/themify-builder-testing-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-02-15T19:26:38","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T19:26:38","slug":"autonation-compass","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/davidpando.com\/pages\/the-creative-lab\/autonation-compass\/","title":{"rendered":"AutoNation Compass"},"content":{"rendered":"
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AutoNation Compass<\/h1>\n
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An Enterprise CRM UX Case Study For America’s Largest Auto Retailer<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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Empirical<\/h4>\n

The Road So Far<\/h3>\n

With over 26,000 employees across the nation, AutoNation’s proprietary enterprise-wide information system, Compass<\/em>, empowers sales associates to be more productive, takes a snapshot of where customers are in the car buying process and drives dealership success, with increasing revenue and a centralized view of all metrics that lead to a sale.<\/p>\n

Advances in technology have rendered the fourteen year old software obsolete, requiring steep attention to identify areas of improvement with regards to overall design and functionality. Compass was a mature legacy enterprise application plagued by usability impediments that negatively impacted employee satisfaction and hindered the effective fulfillment of the sales associates’ daily tasks.<\/p>\n

I led efforts to evolve and ameliorate Compass as an enterprise software solution and addressed sales associate pain\u2010points related to using Compass in the automotive retail experience.<\/p>\n

To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information in this case study.
The information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of AutoNation.<\/h6> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t
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Project Roles<\/h5>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t
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\"Product<\/p>\n

Product Owner<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Project<\/p>\n

Project Manager<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Content<\/p>\n

Content Strategist<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Researcher\"<\/p>\n

Usability Researcher<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Interaction<\/p>\n

Interaction Designer<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Visual<\/p>\n

Visual Designer<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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Software Utilized<\/h5> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t
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\"MS<\/p>\n

MS Project<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Axure<\/p>\n

Axure RP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Sketch\"<\/p>\n

Sketch<\/p>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Adobe<\/p>\n

Photoshop<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Adobe<\/p>\n

Illustrator<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Adobe<\/p>\n

InDesign<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Adobe<\/p>\n

Acrobat<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Apple\"<\/p>\n

Apple<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Android\"<\/p>\n

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Project Initiation<\/h4>\n

In Pursuit Of A Clear Vision<\/h3>\n

I performed as the lead content strategist and user experience designer for the redesign of AutoNation Compass, a large-scale corporate web application. Additionally, I was solicited to operate as the product owner on behalf of the AutoNation UX Strategy & Design Team due to my project management background.<\/p>\n

As with any project, the first step was the discovery process. My goal as an aspirant UX researcher was to understand the user and stakeholder needs, as well as identify project constraints and generate assumptions. I wanted to draw from those research conclusions a curated product backlog of items based on requirements, restrained stakeholder appetites and technical feasibility.<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Test Driving Software<\/h5>\n

I wanted to\u00a0attain a personal exposure to the CRM system, so I immersed myself in\u00a0a sandbox of Compass to try and imbibe all of the features and tools offered by the software. By using Compass to accomplish simple tasks, I evoked my own perception of what aspects of the\u00a0platform needed immediate attention. Additionally, this practice helped me reference areas of concern in conversation with stakeholders by having an intimate familiarity having used the software.<\/p>\n

My initial impression of Compass was of being overwhelmed by the amount of content, perpetual links and lack of whitespace. The pages required intensive scanning to understand how to begin a task, of which many links brought me to broken pages. There were several layers of navigation with no distinction of how the content was grouped. And every click seemingly opened a new browser tab, which as they accumulated, became almost impossible to manage.<\/p>\n

In The Driver’s Seat<\/h5>\n

A Compass Task Force was assembled which included the top leadership of the most influential stakeholders at AutoNation to establish a collection of assessments, explore technology metrics and create a backlog of desired features and improvements.<\/p>\n

The goal was to establish a shared understanding between all parties with regards to how the new version of Compass would impact sales associates, customers, organization goals, and overall profitability.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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\"Mark<\/p>\n

Mark Akbar<\/p>\n

Vice President ofSales\/ Field Operations<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Addison<\/p>\n

Addison Verklas<\/p>\n

Senior Strategy Manager<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Javier<\/p>\n

Javier Romero<\/p>\n

Senior Sales System Analyst<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Famous<\/p>\n

Famous Rhodes<\/p>\n

Vice President ofDigital Marketing<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Katherine<\/p>\n

Katherine Derrick<\/p>\n

Director of Customer
Experience Design<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Alex<\/p>\n

Alex Miranda<\/p>\n

Manager of CustomerExperience Design<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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Photos from the Compass Task Force Kick-Off Meeting<\/p>\n

I faced particular challenges of stakeholder commutuality with regards to retail sales\u00a0and technical terminology between individuals on both the Sales Operations Team and the UX Design Team demonstrated how their unfamiliarity with each others’ industry would impact the project negatively. Acting as a facilitator for both teams, it was my responsibility to bridge communication gaps and technical uncertainty between the stakeholders themselves.<\/p>\n

The Compass Complexity<\/h5>\n

Meeting notes after convening the Compass Task Force Kick-Off presentation provided me with a considerable checklist of project requirements and stakeholder expectations that I needed to prioritize based on importance, demand, and feasibility. Despite having established a backlog of coveted user stories, I knew that daily stand-ups were needed for me to extract the priceless tacit knowledge that stakeholders could provide me with from years of experience using Compass.<\/p>\n

Working closely with the AutoNation Dev Team, I was able to get a glimpse “under the hood”<\/em> of the fundamental operations, services and third-party integrations associated with Compass. I was discouraged by stakeholders not to attempt creating a site map, citing the boundless breadth of pages and links. Instead I opted to map out the differentiating services and flow of data being parsed on daily basis. It would provide me with a close overview of Compass’ inner workings.<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A Simon Pan<\/a> inspired technical mind map of Compass I developed through exploratory research<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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Superseding the technical conundrum that was Compass, I wanted to avoid investing too much focus on the technological intricacies at the expense of human and organizational related issues.1<\/sup>\u00a0Little attention is often given to the role of employees in the implementation of CRM activities, I needed to address the impact that adopting Compass had on AutoNation employees and consider how to motivate sales associates into adapting to a new way of thinking which included the emotional and behavioral changes manifested by the change in system.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

Concerns For Technology Acceptance<\/h5>\n

Many employers fail to notice that besides the consumers out there, the\u00a0company also has other consumers. These are the firm’s employees who make use of various software applications to carry out their job on a daily basis.3<\/sup> I was well aware that the “people factor”<\/em> was a critical determinant of the success or failure of a CRM project, as a lack of user involvement would contribute to the failure of the CRM. A value mismatch could occur if the platform was easy to use and did not meet the staff’s core needs and preferences.<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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\"\"<\/p>\n

74% of dealership sales staffs nationwide don’t use their stores’ CRM systems because they think they’re too hard to use.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jonathan Ord, DealerSocket<\/p>\n

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For CRM to be implemented, adopted and used effectively, the organizations requires to understand how to implement and get maximum benefits from a CRM. Among many failures of CRM is an organizations lack of bigger picture by failing to consolidate the data they have on customers from various users and systems and combine it with external sources like social media.4<\/sup><\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t <\/div>\n\t \t<\/div>\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t \n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\n\t

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Key Findings Regarding CRMs and Car Dealerships5<\/sup><\/p>\n