We have recently updated ViHUBs user interface (UI) to help ViHUB customers boost vehicle speed to market and maximise car sales. This followed an intensive two-month ‘discovery’ phase in which we held several workshops with end users in franchised dealerships to develop our new dashboard.
Led by our product manager Linda Clarke, the sessions enabled us to devise a UI that was user-friendly, efficient and would enable sales teams to improve stock turn and sell more vehicles.
Linda: “In ViHUB, we’ve developed a system that pools multiple data sources currently at work in a dealership to create a ‘Single View of the Truth’ for each vehicle which feeds online marketing channels with consistent and rich vehicle data. However, we also needed to develop an interface which is easy to use, intuitive and met all our end user requirements to make managing, updating and stock visibility simple, straightforward and fast.”
Once we had identified key themes and requirements from end users, six-week developments took place with ‘super users’ accessing and testing the UI before a series of training workshops were undertaken across users utilising ViHUB. We have now performed a full roll and receiving great feedback already.
The new UI incorporates a redesigned layout for a business’ vehicle listings page in columns with easy access to vehicle information which requires regular updating such as price and mileage. It also includes an ‘attention grabber’ column with a one-liner highlighting a vehicle’s top feature and three images which can be expanded without having to enter the full description. Users can customise the columns according to their individual requirements and the system will save their preferences whilst the new design has done away with pagination replacing it with infinite scroll.
Two clever search tools are available on the listings page with one allowing a specific vehicle to be found using make, model, registration or VIN and the other enables a user to begin typing information such as the first characters of the registration or the make thereby pulling up all matching models allowing the car to be identified without needing its full details. The latter also means users can locate batches of vehicles such as those sharing the same first four characters of the registration, a common feature of former fleet vehicles which come into dealer stock.
The new UI flags up vehicles in need of urgent attention which we term ‘rule breakers’. By implementing sets of rules according to dealer or manufacturer requirements, such as minimum price for a new model, no more than 100 miles on a new vehicle’s clock, a minimum price for a used vehicle, a ‘bad’ description or incorrect or missing finance code, such vehicles are easily located and the problem rectified whilst the system does not allow these vehicles to be pushed live to online marketplaces. Linda “Our intention was to develop a user interface which was attuned to the needs of the people who are using it every day and often with varying requirements. By so doing, we make their jobs easier and processes become much more efficient with the ultimate goal of increasing speed to market so dealers can sell more vehicles and increase profits.”