MINI Anywhere
MINI Anywhere is an integrated digital retail tool by BMW Group and MINI USA, which was launched in March 2021. After joining NETSOL in February 2021, I worked with the design team to identify user friction and redesign certain elements of the customer experience, which led to a significant improvement in revenue and dealer acquisition.
My main responsibilities were collecting feedback from dealers and buyers, analyzing collected data and working collectively with the design team to ideate and implement UX improvements.
The Problem
MINI Anywhere, though the leading tool to buy MINI vehicles, was experiencing low numbers due to outdated UX for certain parts of the journey, which was impacting business goals negatively. Specifically, it experienced high drop-off rates during user onboarding, which was caused by an extensive and overloaded signup process. This also led to low discoverability of many features later in the journey.
We redesigned the entire signup process, making the process simpler and allowing users to configure their deal before they have to input any personal details. We also integrated some key interaction points in deal configuration on a single screen to give buyers more control. This solved the bottleneck that was preventing users to proceed with the later stages of the platform and had a compounded effect on the success of the product.
Research
Before we began our concentrated approach to redesign MINI Anywhere we conducted a series of interviews with a panel of dealers as well as customers who had already used the product. The team and I were based in the Lahore office so it was challenging to conduct primary research from afar - so we had to get creative and use a vast array of online tools to conduct our interviews.
The key insights we gathered from our research not only validated the data and our problem statement but also shined light on a new problem we had to focus on: education and guidance. Car-buying can be a complicated process and doing it completely online might be daunting for some - so it was imperative we introduced a solution where buyers could get a sense of what the process would look like - especially at the beginning.
Ideation
We ran brainstorming sessions initially within the team and later involved engineers and PMs in our exercises. We aimed to simplify the customer journey and went broad with our ideation before narrowing down on ideas that worked, focusing on resolving multiple pain points with a single solution.
We selected the best ideas from our sketches and decided to develop them into mockups before starting prototyping.
New Onboarding Process
Instead of having a separate sign-up page, we moved the process to a popup, which shows up when the buyer lands on the deal configuration page. Due to limitations set forward by MINI, the onboarding had to take place before users can start configuring their deal so we had to work with that in mind.
One-Stop Shop
We combined stages of our buying process into one “one-stop shop”, where a side panel would include the major ingredients of deal customisation (price calculator, add-ons, trade-in), instead of going in a linear and sequential fashion. This saves more time and gives buyers more control during the process.
Results
The redesign has led to a recorded sales uptick by 20% for MINI and has led to the onboarding of 30+ dealerships in various states in the US in 2022. Moreover, there has been a 40% decrease in dependency on customer support for new users.
Working on the redesign was a great learning opportunity and very rewarding to see positive results of our efforts. We continue to monitor data and are working on refining the user journey even further.