REBORRN for G4S: Designing the Offer-to-sale Webapp.
We could safely say that, this is a short story of how we fought against Microsoft Excel and actually won. Don’t get us wrong. We use excel sheets everyday. But, no, this is not the right tool when you aspire to elevate your game with automations, advanced analytics and more complex processes. For these cases, you definitely need to go a step further. Especially if you are G4S, the world’s largest Security Services Company with hundreds of thousands of employees and millions of customers.
Working in close partnership with them for almost two years, taught us quite a lot about the big companies’ struggle with digital transformation. G4S has embarked on a brave transformational journey, experimenting with new commercial models, launching smart security systems to the market, and automating internal processes replacing legacy systems by using cloud based applications. At REBORRN we consider ourselves lucky to be part of this journey.
As part of a wider initiative to change the company’s technology infrastructure with cloud based applications, this story focuses on our work with the retail salesforce team. To rethink the internal process but also the ways we interact with the customers, we built together with G4S our own “Offer-to-sale Webapp”, a made-to-order solution to a before manual process: setting up a services offer for a client and getting their acceptance.
But, did they really need this?
Yes. In fact, G4S salesforce needed an internal tool that would allow them to be super quick and efficient when it comes to building an offer for a smart home security system. We are talking about a dynamic team that is continuously on the move, balancing their time between meetings with clients and admin work. They needed speed and simplicity. They needed automation. Instead, they had to work among excels, printers and post offices. On the other hand, G4S customers needed a magic link that gives them access to their offer, an easy overview of their contract terms and direct payment methods. All in all, they needed a paperless, short process to follow.
Note: We figured out that in most service companies like telcos, banks and insurance, the process of making an offer and especially exposing this offer to the customer is broken. In most cases, customers receive several Documents printed or at best in PDF format.
The complete cycle when it comes to a new offer within our digital tool includes 2 distinct steps with 2 separate users-receivers. To start with, the one stands for the offer creation, taking under consideration the client’s needs and overall cost, concluding to the ideal security services proposal. This is the sellers’ part and also the first page of the webapp. The second stage consists of the actual online checkout by the client. The ideal process here would be: starting with a comprehensive overview of the offer -with information on materials and services included-, getting to a simple form to gather all necessary personal information and the detailed terms and conditions summary, concluding with payments and sign offs. Not more than 4 simple steps, which is exactly what the webapp promises.
As we always do, we chose an agile way of working for this project with a pilot-and-adapt mentality, dividing our timeline in sprints and setting weekly status meetings in order to discuss progress, pending requests and conflicts. Our business process optimisation consultant who led the project, was mostly working from the G4S premises in order to make things proceed faster and minimise any communication gaps. We involved a multi-disciplinary team of consultants, G4S project owners, CRM specialists, designers and developers, creating a partnership approach rather than a client-consultant relationship.
Setting up an offer on the move, without sacrificing design or a bunch of trees.
Offer-to-sale Webapp is, first and foremost, a seller’s digital assistant, turning hardcopies into a few clicks on their tablets. Automation isn’t just a way to maintain information, it’s a constant reminder to sellers to focus on identifying carefully their customers’ needs rather than working on mathematical operations.
The tool though, is much more than just another calculator that makes sums. Well-balanced and thoughtfully designed, a one-pager solution where functionality hides behind every step. Different products to add, services to include or exclude, discounts to consider. Ownership and independence are encouraged but the company could intervene at any moment, vetoing disadvantageous proposals, e.g. warning messages for central approvals pop out against unreasonable discounts.
To give you an overview of the impact the tool had, it would be enough to describe what sellers did before. They were referring to some excel sheets to gather all the products’ information and to share the subscriptions’ details, passing to word templates and filling in the gaps. Then getting to print the documents and preparing the hard copies that the clients would receive via post. Doing those steps once was not always the end of the road. Clients are continuously asking for better prices, more services, that extra feature they noticed in your site and so on. This means that the processes described above needed to be repeated, like a vicious cycle of manual work. We are sure that this is a common story for most of the companies out there.
So what we did was to connect the dots: give sellers the possibility to prepare an offer on the go, allowing a real-time alignment with customers. Hardcopies are over, everything is now digital, faster and more cohesive. All steps are supported in the app and the team can share the outcome with their clients directly via email. Transparency is fostered as all information lies under the company’s CRM entity.
In a nutshell, sales teams can now easily access the application and set up their offers without using any other document editors (e.g. word and excel files). They stopped printing and waiting for real time sign offs. The tool gives them the convenience of working on the road providing plenty of time to meet customers with no need to be physically in G4S. We were aware that it would probably be a hard transition so we created onboarding sessions, collectively and individually. We were positively surprised. Not only employees overcame their first reluctance, but they also came back with ideas on new features and functionalities.
Our user experience approach was a game-changer here. We knew we had to provide flexibility and clear information structure. We incorporated more than 350 products accompanied with photos and details for the days that sellers are setting up an offer along with clients on their tablets. Ensuring that our custom design could be easily supported in cases of integration of new products, we created design libraries, saving developers from complex work and reducing the time of going live. We were pragmatic: we designed features like grab and drop, prepared big, visible buttons and used the latest technology trends to achieve the maximum live synchronization capacity -even if this meant that we had to balance between big scale projects technologies and cost efficiency. Sellers don’t even need to sit to set up an offer.
This tool is right now their second nature, to the extent that they can’t even recall how they used to build their offers before.
Getting your personalized security services in exactly 4 steps.
Making the life of the sellers easier was one thing. We then needed to rethink how the company approaches its customers. We aimed to reverse the perception that G4S is a traditional company that still chooses the post to send contracts, into the certainty that we are talking about a customer-centric organization that cares for clients’ experience in every step of the way. Detail focused and simplicity driven.
Therefore, in regards to the offer acceptance part, we set a strict rule to ourselves: the rule of 4. 4 steps to purchase. We didn’t have the intention to squeeze complicated information into one page but to set a clear process with the necessary steps only. That’s why we went for 2 navigation types, a vertical one including the detailed content per step and the horizontal one, showcasing the whole process of the online checkout. Those 4 steps are the following:
- Offer Overview: Including all the chosen products and services with prices and monthly charges.
- Personal Information: The customers check the automatically updated personal information fields and make final changes or additions in the form.
- Terms and Conditions: Including all approved G4S terms and conditions. The customers can access everything in a single-page review and download the file on their computers.
- Payment: The last step includes the summary of the specific offer, with prices, discounts, necessary upfront payments and charged services for specific period of time. Customers can easily decide between 2 different payment methods (credit card or a bank Transfer).
- A bonus thank you screen :)
The webapp replaced hard copies with emails, reducing decisively the waiting time before the contracts signing. Since it’s accessible from desktop and mobile devices, it’s even more convenient for customers to purchase faster and in a friendlier way. The magic link secures previously submitted information so the users can continue from the part they left off. We know that automated tools could easily turn into an impersonal experience for users, so we asked sellers to provide us with well-curated tips and directions for every step of the customers’ journey. G4S made sure that the sales team would take action, in case of connection difficulties or on behalf of people unfamiliar with technology.
Last but not least, one of our favorite features that could only get real thanks to the vision of G4S for transparency and customer care, is the pinpointing of some important information customers should definitely watch out when reading the terms and conditions of their contract. Information that companies use to hide behind smaller letters. On top of that, requiring the agreement in 3 different checkboxes before the next level (Agree with terms, Accept communication from G4S — GDPR, Need for online invoices) ensures that the user is fully aware of the contract details.
Who could say no to that process?
Instead of a long epilogue.
If we had to share a catchy but 100% accurate closure, we would say that the Offer-to-sale Webapp is right now the sellers’ right-hand tool and the customer’s information paradise. Automated and user friendly but above all, a time, effort and paper savior.
Compliments 🙏🏻
To G4S Systems and G4S Telematix products owners, Dimosthenis Trilivas and Evi Schimfle, who worked closely with the team throughout the project, sharing with us all the valuable information and support we needed to reach our final outcome. Even when we went live, their feedback and approvals elevated the sellers’ and customers’ overall experience.
To G4S Systems Acting General Manager Giorgos Sarantis and G4S Telematix General Manager Panos Tsonis for their overview, knowledge sharing and guidance on the business perspective.
To the G4S salesforce team, for bringing their experience and useful insights regarding the whole process set up, for their tips and feedback, for their excitement to make the webapp part of their everyday work and their ideas on turning it into a friendly tool for customers.
Special thanks go to Anastasia Terzidou for co-authoring this article.
Before you go, if you are intrigued, take a look at our behance case study.
