Bites Co
Applied skillsets: UX Designer | UX research | User testing | UI design | 3d Design
Bites.Co wanted to understand more about their customers and how to better serve their tastes and preferences. In the process we discovered BitesCo. had a unique offering in customisable vending machines, and designed an engaging on-boarding journey where customers could tailor their machines and the products within.
Bites Co is vending machine company with a twist. While most vending machines will stock the standard soft drinks and chocolate bars Bites Co stood out from the norm by stocking healthy, unique and rotating snacks.
Bites Co was in a slow burn state. They could only handle one vending machine installation per month and were looking for ways that would enable them to scale up the business in the future.
Bites Co approached us with the task of better understanding how their B2B clients interacted with the Bites Co website.
Our research plan focused on gathering information from current clients about how and why they chose Bites Co, and what was and wasn’t working for them.
We also went about conducting contextual research, observing how customers use vending machines.
The interviews around the B2B customers yielded a few trends we could expand on. The first was something that was soon dubbed in the group as the “Aura of Laura”. A big selling point for B2B customers was the personalised service that Laura offered.
They found her enthusiasm and entrepreneurship contagious. They appreciated her service, stocking and maintaining the machines, and valued the fact that she went the extra mile to make sure the machines we stocked with new and interesting products.
We also looked at a few features that Bites Co offered like machine customisation and why it wasn’t being utilised as much as it could be. For the most part it largely came down to a lack of awareness of this feature, which presented us with another opportunity.
The machines were also zero costs to B2B cusomers. Installation, stocking and maintenance was all free of charge with Bites Co taking the profits from the snacks. The running theme from a lot of clients was that they had nothing to lose. All they had to do was get it approved and organise a day they could install the machine and the rest was handled by Bites Co.
The snacks also had, in some cases helped in office culture. Bites Co made sure that snacks were constantly rotated. They kept offerings fresh with a variety of health food companies, boutique cold brew coffee brands all the way to bright and vibrant snacks from overseas.
This would create a sense of excitement around the the snacks. When new products were rotated in the word would spread and office managers would notice that people would talk to each other in passing when they noticed someone with a new snack walking by.
After reviewing the Bites Co website and what content was currently prioritised on it, we settled on revamping the website to bring valued content to the forefront based on what was most important to clients:
Zero cost to the customer
Hassle free installation and maintenance
Carefully curated snacks
Free custom design
We used the 'Crazy 8s' method to rapidly ideate a new homepage that would highlight most valued content to users.
Included in our designs was the idea to show the amazing journey of entrepreneurship and passion for finding unique snacks through a timeline of how Bites Co came to be - to allow customers to come on the journey with Laura.
We also included a menu feature that would help bring awareness to the large range of unique and interesting products that Bites Co stocked.
Additionally, we created a vending machine customisation UI that would bring awareness to this free service and could be utilised to engage customers in the sales process.
We worked together on a revamped home page. Putting together the key pages that clearly and concisely translated the content that B2B users valued the most.
We then split off on tasks and I started to look into ways of engaging customers in the sales process. I started on a 3d interface that would allow users to visualise their custom designs.
By using customisation we could engage customers into the sales process by personalising the experience.
With my background in 3d design I modelled, textured, lit and rendered one of the Bites Co models of vending machines.
I used the way Instagram allows users to select filters, as inspiration for the UI design for the Bites Co customisation.
By using an already popular layout we are hoping that users will be able to instantly recognise, pick up and start using it, ultimately drawing them into the sales process.
The one thing that was most successful as a sales tool for Bites Co was their tasting days. They would layout tables full of their unique snacks and drinks that would draw people in.
We started to think of ways we could utilise tasting with what we had already come up with.
The concept we came up with was a scenario where a customer has uploaded their vending machine design. Bites Co could then send out a miniature version of their vending machine filled with snack samples.
By doing this we would be leveraging what is currently Bites Co's most effective sales tool, the tasting samples. We would also be giving a customer an artefact they could use to woo potential stakeholders.
We tested the prototype using maze, a remote user testing platform that would allow us to set up task base scenarios and ask questions to the testers throughout the process.
With the revamped homepage the users could accurately recall key content and messaging that were prioritised in the new design.
The 3d customisation UI was a big success! We managed to create a feature which engaged people with the website and was easily understood and interacted with.
We showcased the end product to Laura and some of the key findings that we had come across.
We were able to give her a good understanding of what her B2B customers really came to value from Bites Co. The "aura of Laura" while hugely important was also going to be something she would have to take in to consideration when looking to scale up the business.
Laura was highly responsive to the 3d UI customisation and its potential to leverage a physical artefact to help in the sales process. She could see the powerful potential in customer and stakeholder engagement when Bites Co looks to scale up its business model.
The revamped website landing page, along with the research findings and prototype test results have now resulted in Bites Co implementing those recommendations.
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