2-Way Texting Feature
Design a new platform level texting feature for use across Storable's product suite.
Additional texting functionality has been a highly requested product feature for SiteLink. An earlier survey was used to stack rank possible features to build. For the projected size and impact, it was determined between the PM, PO, and I that 2-way texting would be the natural next step on our roadmap with the goal of eventually launching a new Forms Editing feature. This is because the 2-way texting feature would set the foundation for a new MFE that could be built into a more robust CRM platform. This feature was not realized, but I had created a wireframe for an MVP version that was scheduled to be built Q1 2023.
Why 2-way texting and not another item?
2-way texting is a significantly smaller project with platform level impact. and it sets the foundation for introducing a new forms editing toolkit powered by Hello-Sign.
Currently, SiteLink integrates with SMS Resource and Twillio (Through an API.) While using these features work alright, SiteLink customers are having to pay an additional expense to use these and the API does not inject back into SiteLink the texted responses. For this reason, users must have multiple softwares open at one time. Users must navigate back and forth between their texting service and the SiteLink software in order to understand what conversations have occurred.
This project consisted of research, customer interviews, project prioritization, generative wire-framing, understanding technical requirements, high-fidelity wireframes.
The research goal was to understand customers desires for this new feature, understand how they currently communicate with tenants, and gather requirements (For the ideal version and later MVP.)
A survey was sent out to our clients who had opted into contributing to our research initiative. Here are a few examples of what they had to say about a potential 2-way texting feature:
- 89% of our customers would be interested in a two-way texting feature
- Most customers want enhanced and additional functionality, but many also want lower costs and integrated functionality.
- 65% of users use 3rd party texting services such as SMS Resource or Twillio
Their motivations behind 2-way texting is as such:
A few Customers had reservations about a new 2-way Texting Feature and said things such as,
“Don’t feel it’s needed at this time," “Older, not technical," “Don’t have time, work alone," “If I am communicating by text, I prefer email," “Not sure how it would work with the SiteLink system," “We use a 3rd party (Ring) we want SiteLink to send messages through Ring and to have the conversation tracked in tenant notes.”
Despite the reservations, the majority of customers would benefit from the feature. Here are some of the capabilities they would like in the new feature. Some of these requirements would later be scrapped from the MVP, but they would be accounted for in later releases:
“All texts being in SiteLink," “Ability to text links," “Mass messaging for ad hoc events," “So tenants don’t have my personal phone number," “All tenant communication in one place."
These survey results reflect the appetite for this feature as well as confirm some of our initial hunches for important requirements.
How do customers use our current feature set? How are they using our software with 3rd parties?
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Uncovered and Validated Pain points
Examples for better texting exist in other Storable Software. Whatever I designed would be later integrated into these FMS' and replace their feature set. It was necessary to understand their interaction patterns in order to design a feature that would work for later replacing them.
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Customer validation is essential for ensuring features that are built will be used because they fulfill user needs and ease current pain points
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For my team, this goal of this project was to size it asa Medium then to move onto other feature work. This required us to clearly define what the MVP would be. There are a lot of ideas for what this feature could be, but providing the leanest/ most valuable feature in our short couple month timeline required us to discuss and understand in an in depth way how it would be built and function.
As a team, we determined it would be essential to have these features:
The features that would be pushed into later sprints were:
This is an example for how texts would be received and would be sorted. Many exceptions need to be accounted for in the future.
The goal of two-texting is to set the foundation for an enhanced communication center as well as replace the tenant notes section of the profile with a true recent activity feature.
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How do we account for alternate phone numbers? Many tenants have backup phone numbers, family members associated with their unit. On any given day, an operator might contact an alternate phone number. Being able to link an unknown phone number to a tenant as well as text an alternate phone number from a tenant's profile is essential.
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The interaction pattern established by sE and ESS uses a small envelope icon. The click target of the envelope is small. I believe it would be valuable to test using a different notification/ selection styles.
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A heavily requested feature for texting is the ability to send/receive documents and add them to the tenant account. The below design accounts for this in the texting modal.
Another future consideration that is necessary is how multi-site companies are able to text tenants. The industry is trending towards unmanned facilities. As such, how can we design for corporate texting capabilities?