Identity Group (IdG) is a 60-year-old American manufacturer that specializes in signage, interior decor, and office products. With nearly 500 employees and 8 locations across the United States, IdG experienced a decline in its growth and business. In order to increase revenue and reignite growth and innovation, IdG aimed to revamp its digital presence and establish an e-commerce platform. In 2018, I joined Identity Group to recruit, oversee, and lead a team of 3 designers and 5 engineers to support these initiatives.
Identity Group, often called "the largest sign company that no one has ever heard of," is committed to enhancing its sign-buying experience. This is because 4 of the six manufacturing facilities specialize in all signage for hospitality brands (Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham, etc). From the initial project quote to showcasing the extensive range of work and clients they serve, IdG recognizes the need for improvement. The current process, which involves quoting a sign project for a major hospitality brand, typically takes 15-30 days and could be streamlined. Additionally, the customer's journey, which often involves speaking to 7-15 people, could be more efficient and personalized.
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”
— Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist
This quote truly encapsulated our approach. In the past, IdG had attempted to solve this problem by hastily creating websites or applications without fully understanding the requirements. The issue with this approach is that the product needs to adhere to specific standards, such as ADA Compliance, and undergoes a complex process from specification to design to manufacturing. Therefore, before tackling any aspect of this challenge, we prioritized building a strong foundation through active listening, continuous learning, and thorough understanding.
A small team and I traveled to our main hospitality sign manufacturing plant in Wichita, Kansas, to engage in active listening, learning, and understanding. Our trip to Wichita provided invaluable insights. I conducted 3-5 interviews daily with employees from various roles (sales, architectural design, production, customer services, management). I facilitated persona, user journey, and card sorting workshops and activities, and shared early findings and potential directions/ideas with internal users and stakeholders. We collaborated with customer service representatives, sales representatives, wayfinders, sign designers, line workers, and plant managers to gain a deep understanding of the product and process. As a result of our extensive explorations and conversations during this discovery mission, we returned to Nashville with minds and notebooks brimming with invaluable insights."
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After returning to Nashville, we immediately got to work sorting through the information, new knowledge, and insights we had gathered. We refined our personas and took them through user journeys. We also mapped out the existing processes for obtaining quotes from clients and then formulated a hypothesis for what our new website could do differently.
One that showcases the wide range of clients, brands, and businesses we serve. It's not just about displaying attractive images but about telling the story and highlighting how we work with and collaborate with them to bring their vision to life, exceeding their expectations.
A customer service portal that centralizes all necessary information and documentation of clients and projects to empower our customer service representatives to provide the best customer experience possible. Away with the doc. files in folders on individuals' desktops and in with shared access so any rep can support any client clearly and quickly.
Simplifying the sign project quote/ordering process makes it easier for the business and clients. IdG's process typically takes 15 to 30 days, and the client could speak to anywhere from 7 to 15 people. Our goal was to give them a soft quote in 24 to 48 hours and have them talk to at most 3 to 5 people, creating a quick experience that prevents lost context and information about the project.
*I will share the Soft Quote Tool so this doesn't become a novel.
The goals for the Soft Quote Tool were clear: Eliminate the paper forms, collect as much of the necessary information upfront, create a platform internally so any internal party can find the information needed without a loss of context, and speed up the quoting process.
To ensure the continuity of our product and goals, we had a weekly check-in with a small group of internal players(customer service reps, manager, production manager, architectural sign designer, wayfinder, etc.) This group empowered us to get feedback and missed information and to prepare them for what was to come.
Adoption is key to success with any new tool! We knew that without the necessary processes to implement and adopt the tools, this would not be true. So, while we were in Wichita, Kansas, we had the foresight to document their current processes for ordering, manufacturing, and delivering signs. By doing this, we uncovered much room to simplify, speed up, and remove friction from the process. Below is one of those process maps.
Once we had a clear vision of the direction we were going there were a few technical dependencies that had to be solved for this to work.
• Create a sign spec matrix to automate and speed up the sign quoting process.
In hospitality signage and wayfinding, most brands have specifically specked and designed signs for their brand. This means we have a catalog of all the branded signage for all the major hospitality brands. We know all the signage a customer needs for every room, stairwell, amenities, and more. So all we need to know for a new hotel location is:
• Brand
• Number of Rooms
• Number of Floors
• Number Stairwells
• Amenities(Pool, Gym, Bar/Restaurant, etc.)
• Floor Plans of the Location(helps us make sure the customer doesn't miss any details)
So the final outcome was so much more than we expected. We made a massive impact by listening to our customers and employees, rethinking 25-40-year-old processes, and the grace to fail fast and iterate.
What we created not only empowers our customers to get a soft quote in 24 hours and their final quote in 7 days or less but enables our employees to serve our customers beyond what they thought possible. We collected as much information as possible upfront from the customer, leveraged the hospitality brand sign standard's data, ADA compliance regulations, and Identity Group's expertise, to bring this experience to life. These new processes and tools free up our employees' time to focus on delivering a better experience to match the high-quality product.
