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Expertise Overview
Smart Tires is an innovative online shopping experience that provides lease-to-own tires. Seeing the potential for long-term growth within an uncrowded market sector, Smart Tires was looking for a website that will serve their customer base well for years to come.
With an eye on expansion, Smart Tires needed a website experience that would attract both customers and potential franchisees.
Smart Tires came to SPINX looking to build an ecommerce application that would automate their time-consuming manual business processes. Their goal was to build a cohesive online shopping experience that would allow customers to find and select tires to lease, sign the lease agreement, arrange for tire installation, and manage their lease payments throughout the lifetime of their lease.
One pain point we identified during the discovery phase was that the previous website was cumbersome for both consumers and Smart Tires to use. It wasn’t easy to browse and find the correct tires, and the application process was not optimized for conversion. The flow from the checkout, to signing the lease, to being setup on the Lease Management Software (LMS) was clunky, as it was all handled manually after a purchase was completed.
Another area of opportunity identified during our discovery was to improve the design aesthetic of the site. The previous site had an outdated design with small fonts and wasn’t optimized for mobile devices (hence shopping could only be done on desktops). This was a huge drawback for site visitors who were trying to do research and make a leasing purchase on their phones.
With clearly defined goals and objectives from the discovery phase, we jumped into crafting a strong UX and visual strategy. There were 3 key pieces we spent the majority of our time focused on: the shopping experience up to the checkout, the checkout funnel, and the lease management integration.
In order to enhance the customer shopping experience, we strategized several improvements to the search functionality, the structure of information on the list page, and the layout of the details page. We intentionally positioned calls to action and crafted on-site messaging to drive qualified customers deeper into the purchasing funnel.
Our strategy for the checkout funnel was to simplify the application and make it as easy as possible to submit the first payment of their lease. We added a progress bar to communicate the information required during the application process and put together a plan that would allow the customer to sign their lease agreement without leaving the checkout flow.
The last step of our strategy was to figure out a way to transfer the information from the checkout flow into the LMS. We mapped out the details for this, and were ready to jump into designs,
The creative process started by updating and modernizing the brand – shifting from a dark and heavy aesthetic to one that felt lighter and brighter, using friendly and legible typefaces, and even updating the brand colors slightly to include a more vibrant and energetic green. We introduced larger type on the site paired with whitespace, giving the eye a chance to breathe and making content on the site easier to digest.
As the project neared the completion of its design phase, SPINX began building out the site. With such a technically unique website build, there was a lot of work we had to do to get all of the integrated systems to “play nicely together.”
Franchise setup, transaction data, installation center management, and website content was managed through a custom-built .NET content management system (CMS). To coordinate the tire products and inventory available to list on the site, we integrated with TireWire. We integrated our systems with eSign to facilitate the digital signatures needed for the lease agreements within the checkout funnel. We also sent the tire orders to TireWire once the purchase was complete so the leased tires could be sent to the correct installation center. And we tied everything into the LMS selected by the client, LoanPro, so management of the lease agreement and payments throughout the lifetime of the lease were available within there.
Given their aspirations to grow, it was important to build the website with the flexibility to expand in the near future. As Smart Tires grows its’ number of franchises and spreads to more cities, the newly-built site allows for Smart Tires admin to easily set up new franchises and locations for success.
Once the site was programmed, we started our comprehensive testing of the build. It was important to confirm each and every integration was working correctly. We test on multiple browsers and devices to ensure everything was working in tip-top shape.
With an active customer base, it was essential that the site be up-and-running immediately once launched. This required a precise plan for the launch process to minimize downtime while switching from the old website to the new ecommerce application.
Once everything was in place, it was off to the races as we pushed the new site live!
Creative problem solving and technical know-how allowed us to create the ecommerce application Smart Tires was dreaming about. With their new robust web platform, Smart Tires is ready to attract new customers and drive off into the growth phase they’ve been preparing for.
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