Our personas first encounters with the redesigned Laddawn.com
Sarah Green
Sarah’s first purchasing assignment is to source some bags for Acme’s customer, Gardner Mattress. Gardner is low on its supply of queen mattress bags. Dennis, the Acme sales rep for Gardner, calls from the road, and asks Sarah to get 3 quotes from 3 different vendors. Sarah turns to her supervisor Gail for some advice about where to start. Gail hands her three catalogs suppliers she's used before.
The first, Elkay had an 800 number and a website. Always preferring the web to a phone call, Sarah went to Elkay's website and immediately focused on the search box in the top right corner. She searched using the term "mattress bag" which produced 20 search results. Sarah scanned the list which included bags for all the standard sizes - crib, single, twin, etc. She also noticed slight variations in dimensions for certain sizes, that some bags were tinted, and that there was a column for gauge; she began to think she might need some more detail from Dennis, but she decided to soldier on. She noticed that pricing was missing. She clicked the link for 'K68' (60x8x90 clear queen size bag) which brought her to a product page. There she found a bold message saying "call for pricing" and a link to a web form for requesting a quote. She realized that in order to get pricing, she needed to log in, place a call or fill out the web form and wait to get a quote (Gail was on one of her frequent cigarette breaks and not available to help). Although Sarah wasn't sure which bag to quote (60x8x 90 or 92" long? clear or tinted? or pillow top, 60x12x90, 4 mil?) she decided to call the 800 number so that she didn't return to Dennis empty handed, and to have a basis of comparison with other vendors. She reached a customer rep and in a few minutes got a quote for Elkay's K68 bags.
She moved on to Laddawn’s catalog. She noticed the web address printed on the cover, inside cover and footer of every page, but she decided to give the catalog a look because of its quirky, funny cover. She scans the contents on page 3 for her trigger word, “mattress” and she doesn’t see it – she quickly decides to try Laddawn’s website. She comes to Laddawn.com and senses she can begin the quoting process right away – there’s a tool inviting her to provide some details about what she’s looking for. At first she’s a little unsure of whether standard polybags is the right choice, but she’s pretty sure “mattress” doesn’t fall under the other categories (reclosable, tubing, etc.)
She then sees the category drop down. Upon opening it, she sees “layflat” and “gusseted” at the top of the list, and isn’t sure what those terms mean (though she can kind of envision their meaning; gusset to her is a sewing term…). A split second later, she scans the entire list, and quickly sees “mattress” – yay! Her eyes wander past the zip field, never noticing it and they move right to size because the dash in the depth field changes to “All." “Hmm…. What are the dimensions of a twin bag? Well, I’m not sure, I could look it up somewhere, but I need to get 3 sizes anyway –what the heck, what do I have to lose?” she thinks to herself. Just below her line of visual focus on dimensions, she senses subtle changes to the screen (the level 3 menus are changing (materials to non-slip, and venting to “standard mattress” – she doesn’t know what they were before). She scans these headings, and decides she doesn’t know enough about this to make any changes at this stage; more than anything she is curious about what will happen next. She looks back up at gauge (which is pre-filled with “all”), wonders how important that it is and rolls over the “i” – she quickly decides that if Dennis had wanted anything in particular there, or under the other menus, he probably would have said something, right? She clicks “Find.”
She gets 30 results (all of Laddawn’s stock mattress bags) on X pages. It seems very well ordered, but she she’s a little overwhelmed by the number of choices – and, she realizes there’s no pricing - in place of pricing is a message about logging in. She decides this is promising, but she concludes she needs more information from Dennis and Gail in order to proceed. She calls Dennis and he emails Gardner’s last order which includes their dimensions for twin, queen and king bags. Gail, back from her cigarette break and sitting in the next cube, provides Sarah with her Laddawn website credentials (or she calls to get her own? How quick is it?).
Placeholder: Describe her experience after re-running same search being logged in…How can we tweak the results design so the experience is satisfactory or even delightful for this polybag novice?
Frank Garcia
Today, Frank’s client, Gray Industries, calls to reorder some bags for a circuit board they manufacture. Their supply from the last order (a custom job - 4 x 6, 6 mil pink anti-static layflat) is running low. Frank has always had some doubts about the client’s need for a 6 mil; he has long suspected Laddawn’s 4 mil stock offering (12110) might work just as well, and cost less (if purchased under Laddawn’s MTO program) – he might make a little less on the transaction, but score some points with this customer for saving them some money on a low margin product. Because the customer mentioned some issues with the circuit boards sliding out during shipment, Frank also wonders whether reclosables are a possible “upselling” opportunity -- but he isn’t sure about what Laddawn stocks or makes in that category.
Frank got an email from Laddawn last month announcing today’s date as the date for the launch of a brand new Laddawn.com. He’s curious about the new site, but he is a little apprehensive; he hopes the changes don’t slow him down with this customer’s quote today.
He comes to the website expecting to use the configurator to get two custom quotes – one for 4 x 6, 4 mil pink anti stat (MTO), and one for a custom 4 x 6, 6 mil pink anti stat). After that, he’d like to investigate whether Laddawn makes any suitable stock or custom reclosables.
Placeholder for description of Frank’s login and first encounter with widget. Perceptions, reactions, behavior etc. What challenges will Frank encounter after clicking “Find”? What pleasant surprises will he encounter? Will new terminology - “made on demand” throw him off? Will he search for one of his reliable trigger words, “MTO,” “custom” or “quote”?
Ultimately, Frank enters 4 x 6, 2 mil pink antistatic rolls boxed – this produces one exact stock match and exact MTO match, and an MTO YMAC in alternative packaging and… (we will seek help from Cliff and Tom on this YMACs beyond the first one…)
Chuck Mason
Scenario starts with inventory. do you have it in stock? 50 cases do you how to story.