ADI Global Distribution is the distribution wing of Resideo, a Fortune-1000 worldwide wholesale distributor of security, networking, and Pro A/V products.
The existing customer onboarding system was poorly organized and lacked standardization, leading to longer wait times, lost sales, and a poor first impression for new clients.
Skills: User research & interviews, data analysis, affinity mapping, journey mapping, layout design, prototyping
Tools & Methodology: Figma, Miro, Perplexity AI, modified double diamond process
6 months from concept to handoff
National Head of Sales
Digital Marketing & E-Commerce Manager
1 Web Developer
My role: Sole product designer
There were several indications that something was wrong with the existing onboarding process:
Only an estimated 10-30% of applications resulted in an activated account.
Most accounts took over a week to activate, with some waiting up to a month.
Frequent questions and missed steps highlighted communication gaps in the process.
Sales staff were reporting lost sales due to the prolonged and convoluted onboarding process.
The process was chaotic and inefficient, with no standard operating procedure, leading to inconsistent customer experiences.
I could only contact clients who had already had accounts
I interviewed staff and credit team members across different departments to understand common questions and problems and pinpoint where applications failed.
The company didn't track form analytics or completion rates, so I needed to estimate that information myself.
I examined emails and account metadata to map the process and timeline, despite lacking analytics.
Recently took on account onboarding as a job duty
Fields questions about application status from customers
Approves applications for account setup
Oversees overall client experience and bringing in new customers
Manages customer escalations and issues within the application process
Reviews credit applications and granting lines of credit
By combining data and interview feedback, I pieced together the typical journey to gaining an account, including customer, employee, and automated system actions:
While conducting interviews, it became clear that the staffs' experience handling applications was a root cause of customer pain points.
For example:
I pried for more details on what bothered them, and then created affinity maps to sort pain points into 4 main themes:
The process is so disorganized and overwhelming. Most of the time, I put it off.
- Junior sales associate
We get so many SPAM applications, and good leads are kept waiting while we figure out who's who.
- Branch manager
There's so many redundant steps. If we got rid of them, it would speed things up a lot.
- Credit analyst
With research completed, I arrived at a clear problem statement:
The user flow was redesigned with input from the Credit, Web and Sales teams.
Strategy behind the redesign:
This was the final result:
The UI redesign carried a strong rationale as well:
Competitors had similarly bare-bones onboarding structures, so I used Mobbin to explore onboarding flows from other industries' UI for inspiration.
I explored a few different options for the user flow:
Establishing a way for staff to organize, track, and find
Eliminating redundancies and finding opportunities for automation
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