Updrift.co

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of Parcel Kiosk, a global shipping company. We maintain relationships with major carriers such as FedEx and UPS, and we help customers select the most affordable or the fastest available carrier through our online shipping platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Updrift.co?

When we started the business, we had a functional MVP available on our site. Once we reached a particular threshold, we decided to look for a new UI. We wanted a partner with a creative customer design background to make it easy for a customer to navigate through our process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did some early research, but there was no user base to work off of at the time. We thought Farid (CEO, Updrift.co) would understand what we were after because he had built something similar before, though not for the same industry. We started by giving them a brief and some customer profiles. Our brief prioritized ease of navigation and workflow and the ability to sell upgrades to customers effectively without pressuring them. They came back to us with recommendations. Farid’s designs have since been transferred to our developers and they’re in development now.

What is the team composition?

Farid was our face to the business. We gave him our brief and communicated with him directly.

How did you come to work with Updrift.co?

We were looking for designers from a small company, not a major agency. I believe we initially found Updrift.co through a freelance platform. We compared them to some other smaller agencies and freelancers, but they were local to us, which made a difference during our early discussions. Farid responded quickly to our initial scope. He also questioned us a lot more than the others, and impressed us as a consultancy-based service, as opposed to taking feedback and delivering something. We liked that service, and during the Q&A following the initial brief, his questions were a lot different than the questions we heard from other agencies. He was more on the scope of our business, asking about our priorities.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2018 and the work has concluded.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We shared Farid’s UI/UX designs with our internal distributors, whose role is to sell the finished platform to different customers. That group of distributors gave us very positive feedback on the designs compared to our existing MVP, particularly for navigation.

How did Updrift.co perform from a project management standpoint?

It was easy to communicate because we dealt exclusively with Farid. He was always timely and provided us with different versions of the same design. Many times, we were the ones moving slowly in providing feedback for him.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their ability to ask out-of-the-box questions. I like that because it challenges us. The timing of their deliverables has also been on point. We've had many projects where deliverables get delayed. But I knew they would work through the night to deliver something in time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think Farid probably needs to extend his service offerings a bit more. I would certainly work with them more if they were to offer additional complementary services. With the service they offer now, we wouldn't have any additional engagement with him for the next year or two, but if they were doing other complementary jobs, we would gladly sign them up for it.