Silicon Valley Building Maintenance (SVBM) is a commercial cleaning company in the San Francisco Bay Area, offering a variety of office cleaning services to the public. Although they run online ads that drive people successfully to their website, they’re failing to get an adequate number of quote submissions to remain profitable—so the problem is believed to lie within the website. SVBM breathes perfection, and is looking to solve the users' hunt for a quality cleaning service once and for all.
Redesign SVBM's website, in order to grow their business through increased online quote form submissions.
I kicked off the project by first conducting a survey, in order to discover the most important factors office/building managers care about when choosing a commercial cleaning company, and to learn more about how they prefer to request quotes—whether that’s through an online form or calling the business by phone. This would help develop SVBM's unique selling proposition and lead the direction of the website redesign to help differentiate from competitors.
Participants were collected through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit office/building manager groups. In addition, paid Facebook ads were ran to drive additional leads—which worked better than the other methods.
Key takeaways from the survey responses include:
When participants finished filling out the survey, they were asked if they’d like to chat on the phone for 10 minutes—in order to go in detail with their responses. 25% of the participants agreed, and here are two key takeaways from those phone calls:
Also to define SVBM's positioning in the market, I analyzed competitors to determine the strengths and weaknesses amongst them—this would help determine what I should specifically focus on implementing, and things I should avoid when it comes to the website redesign.
After research was conducted, I found it extremely important to summarize those findings visually—to best empathize with potential website users. Having a persona and customer journey map, and being able to refer back to it as a resource helped later on when developing the website copy.
After defining the potential website user visually, I wanted to understand all of the possible pathways they could take throughout the website to achieve the desired outcome (submitting a quote).
Defining the user flow helped prioritize which pages should be focused on the most—since they're the most crucial when it comes to achieving the desired outcome for SVBM and the user.
After defining the potential website user and the paths they could take to the desired outcome, I started sketching out potential layouts for the website. Before I began, I browsed through competitor websites and online design resources for inspiration—all while keeping the previous work in mind.
Shortly after sketching and gaining alignment on the layout, I started creating wireframes in Whimsical—which included copy I iterated on with the client.
Once I was finished with ideating and iterating on the overall layout and copy of the website, I created a style tile for the client to leave feedback on—and iterated upon it until we reached a consensus.
It was important to keep the client satisfied, while also achieving a successful brand style that would communicate SVBM's core values well with their potential clients.
Once the client and I were satisfied with the style tile, I created mockups and a high-fidelity prototype for the home page and the entire quote form.
Once the high-fidelity prototype was created, it was time to test it amongst a different office/building manager audience—to determine usability issues, and to understand participants' overall mood as they completed the designated task of getting a free quote.
Here were some of the key takeaways from the usability test:
Changes based on these findings were made in the updated prototype.
Following the implementation of the website redesign, SVBM experienced a ~128.5%* increase in average daily quote submissions ~2 weeks after launch.
*All confidential information has been redacted for this case study.
With this project I’ve learned a lot more about what it’s like to conduct research in the real world. I learned how to leverage best practices for conducting a survey, and how to convince a very specific demographic to participate in it with a very small budget. I also learned about the importance of copywriting, and how to write good copy. Conducting usability tests remotely was a first as well.
Whether you're wanting to collaborate or simply curious about my work, let's connect!
david@davidgilman.co
