Volvo Car Locator / AKQA
An aggregator tool that solved the #1 user complaint for volvocars.com, the primary site in the United States for the upscale auto brand.
At the time prospective buyers were only able to search for vehicles on the local dealership sites, one by one, so the task to find a specific model and the desired trim, options or color could be burdensome.
To ease frustration and streamline the customer experience, AKQA designed and built a tool that geo-located the user and integrated with the Google Maps API – from there, users could update their ideal search radius, narrow results with 15+ quick filters such as model year and price, view photorealistic images of the vehicles, compare selected options side-by-side, and request a quote or contact a dealership to schedule a test drive.
The tool generated 800+ qualified leads within the first 90 days of its debut.
As head of product for AKQA in Portland, led a globally distributed team from the London, Stockholm and New York studios to deliver the solution from 0 to 1.
Also stepped in to provide interim account leadership for this new client before local resources onboarded:
- Completed a detailed landscape audit that included comparable site capabilities for all major competitors along with examples from innovative technology brands to inspire alternative approaches.
- Outlined a strategic vision with clear objectives and success metrics in partnership with staff designers and engineers, to create a shared investment in the outcome.
- Collaborated with UX to reimagine the user flows and use cases to introduce the new tool into the ecosystem in an organic, seamless way that did not disturb or devalue other concurrent brand experiences.
- Documented all requirements for the front- and back-end features to deliver the first-gen platform, which included a new REST API to dynamically populate the experience with real-time data that eliminated extensive manual curation by content authors.
- Counseled Volvo through a transition to a modern microservice architecture to enable both the creation of the locator and future enhancements across the suite of related tools, and ran point for the client and agency through the design and development of the responsive web application.