Vendora: Customer to Business Interface
Chaunhi Le
Overview
Vending machines are notorious for malfunctioning. It almost seems as if it's a universal experience to pay for a snack and the vending machine gets stuck. As if that weren't bad enough, there's almost nothing you can do to get your money back because there's no one to call for help.
Vendora is a customer-to-business (C2B) interface that solves for the lack of communication line between customers and vending machine owners. We will be solving for refund issues on the user end and refund, inventory and restock features on the business end. The timeline of the project was about 4 weeks.
Role
User Experience Designer - Interactive Designing - Prototyping - Wireframing & Testing
The Problem
❋ There's no refund feature or line of communication from the users to the business in the event that the vending machine malfunctions.
❋ Business owners aren't able to keep track of inventory and what needs to be restocked unless they visit the physical location of the machine.
❋ Manually counting and updating inventory + creating a restock list each time is very time consuming. Most vending machine businesses are side hustles for passive income so vendors are likely to be stretched on time.
The Solution
Since this is a bigger project, it was important to start off the process by identifying the goal for each user group (user and business owner) as well as the product:
User: Be able to request a refund if the machine malfunctions
Business: Increase efficiency in the restocking and refund process & rebuilding trust with users
Product: Create a line of communication between the user and the business
After doing so, it was apparent that there was a need to design two interfaces for two sets of users to achieve these goals:
Vending Machine Interface (for Users)
Mobile App Interface (for Business Owners)
The Process ☁ User Side
Vending Machine Interface
This interface will display half of the refund process that the user is able to see. The other half of the refund process will be on the business side.
Prototype GIF 🎥
The Refund Process 💰
Let's create a line of communication for our users to the business for when the vending machines give them trouble.
Get Refunded in Vending Machine Credit
Users will receive credit through their account associated with their phone number. To access this credit, the user will enter their phone number before shopping and apply at checkout. Not only is this method fast and easy, it helps with user retention.
Automatically Turns an Aisle Offline
Any item reported as a "Malfunction" will automatically make be unavailable for purchase until the business owner turns the aisle online again. This prevents further issues with that item and more refund tickets until it is resolved.
The Process ☁ Business Side
Mobile App Interface
Now that we're hopping over to the business side of the refund process, let's go through the mobile app from the business owner's perspective.
We'll finish the Refund process and then we'll go through the Inventory & Restock process.
Prototype GIF 🎥
The Refund Process 💰
Refunds Made Easy
All the information you need to review the refund claim to decide is in one place. Make your decision to approve or deny the refund with the Snapshot feature.
The Inventory & Restock Process 📋
These features allow business owners to efficiently run their business from the convenience of their phone while also eliminating extra costs and hassles.
Results
The feedback I received from peers of my cohort and randomly selected users from social media were very positive. Many of them pointed out that the "Help" button for the vending machine interface was a feature that was so simple, yet is not a feature available on most vending machines.
Now that I think of it, why don't vending machines have a refund option? I can't even tell you how many times I've seen people bang on the vending machine or walk away frustrated because there was no way to get their money back.
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Posted Aug 17, 2022
Vending machines are notorious for malfunctions. Vendora creates a line of communication from the user to the business, solving issues from refunds to inventory
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