AI Hendrickson Toyota

Doubled their conversion rates with small changes

OVERVIEW

AI Hendrickson Toyota.com is a car dealership website that aims to provide car shoppers with an easy and delightful car buying experience. AI Hendrickson Toyota is one of our VIP clients. They are also a top-3 Toyota dealership in FL.

We have received a Jira ticket from AI Hendrickson Toyota and they asked us for implementing a new feature on their homepage.

Request: The dealer wanted a car model picker feature on their homepage to ensure the user can quickly drill down to their desired car models.

PROBLEM

The dealer observed with something those car buyers can't quickly find their desired cars and they just leave the site. So their hypothesis is that maybe they were missing a car model picker feature on the homepage like their competitor's website.

There is no place for car buyers to search for their desired models directly from the homepage.

PROBLEMS OF THE EXISTING SOLUTIONS

My PM sent me this ticket and asked me to implement one of our existing dropdown search widget tools under the buttons, which can support the user to search models.

This traditional search tool has been used on our websites before. However, according to the heatmap studies, only a few users used the dropdown filter. The top buttons always get the most clicks. That is why we didn't include this feature in our website template.

Only a few users clicked or used a traditional dropdown model picker tool due to its hidden options and low efficiency.

This ticket sparks my curiosity to find a better way to solve the problem. I decided to challenge myself to redesign this feature.

SOLUTION EXPLORING

How can I create a new tool that will provide car shoppers with a very engaging and fast model picker experience with fewer frictions?

Design Goals

This will be achieved through 2 goals:

Help the car shopper quickly filter for a model with fewer frictions.
Increase enga.

Challenge for me

Design and code the model picker tool in the one-day timeline. Under the time constraint, I need to figure out the best way to quickly get some user’s insights and also keep in mind there won’t be a lot of customized coding involved.

Research

I had interviewed more than 20 car buyers, watched over 100 video recordings on how user interact with our websites. I have also read multiple research articles related to the car buying experience. As a result, it has come to my understanding that there are two major types of car buyers who land on dealership websites.

60% of car shoppers enter the website are unsure of what they want to buy and open to consider multiple makes and models. I call them fresh shoppers.

60%

40%

User Interview

Does search by model name work well for the fresh shoppers?

To verify my hypothesis and due to limited time and resources, I decided to do a quick user interview with some of my friends who are not car savvy. I showed them a list of car model names and asked them do they recognize these names.

Fresh shoppers couldn't recognize model names very well. They want to know what are these models look like.

DESIGN EXPLORATION

Given the feedback of the interview, I came out with an idea of this “Explore By Toyota Model” page for fresh buyers. I also added a search bar on the homepage for confident buyers.

My PM and client both liked my suggestions. I implemented this design into our website with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, foundation, and PHP.

RESULT

The design had a very positive impact on their website. After three months, we gladly saw those that dramatic results from Google Analytics.

+128%

Conversion Rate

-50%

Bouncing Rate

My company included the feature into their VIP package and scaled up sales by implementing it to over 800 dealership websites. I felt a sense of accomplishment as not only I received positive results, I had also added value to the company.

ITERATION

Although the design resonated well with our clients, there was still much room for improvement. Now one year has gone by. We had feedbacks and data from the initial iteration. Although we doubled their leads from the initial iteration, they expected more leads to turn into real sales.

How can I help the car dealership increase their leads to sales rate through the second iteration?

Research

What influences car buyers' purchase decisions?

I had conducted in-person interviews at a local Toyota car dealership to identify the factors and user mindsets that influence how customers make decisions throughout their buying journey. I learned the following:

Car shoppers evaluate cars by relating them to their lifestyle and budget.
Confidence and trust are the two major keys to influence car buyers to close the deal at the dealership.

Design Goals & Ideate

Based on the research insights, I decided to help the car dealer turn more leads into sales by instilling more confidence and trust in our users. I used the HMW method to explore new ideas and solutions.

HMW allows the user to explore cars by price and lifestyles.
HMW adds expert reviews of the models.
HMW makes it easier for the user to compare models.

Design

I created my first design option which includes expert reviews and basic information for each car model. They can quickly compare all the car models at a glance. I also added new search types "explore car by price" and "explore car by lifestyles" for users.

However, I quickly discovered that this is not the optimal solution for two reasons:

I iterated on the design and decided to make the models filterable by price or lifestyles. So if the user clicked the family car tab, it will filter out all family car models. Users can quickly compare their price range, fuel information, and expert reviews. This design can help them make a decision fast and confidently.

NEXT STEP

In terms of future improvements, a lot would depend on the measurement data. The final goal is to help the dealer increase their website conversion rate and turn more leads into sales. I am thinking of adding a special sales cars here because many car shoppers are looking for specials and I believe this is an excellent opportunity to promote it to them.

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