SMS Assistant

SMS Assistant to track shipment status

We partnered with OnTrac, a regional shipping carrier that specializes in parcel logistics and delivery services, to expand customer service capabilities through an SMS channel integration.
‍
Business need: enabling customers to track their packages conveniently through text messaging at any time and location.

The implementation of SMS tracking capabilities aligned perfectly with modern consumer expectations for immediate, mobile-first access to shipping information.

Components from the library with a text direction left-to-right and right-to-left.

Team.

I collaborated with stakeholders, Customer Success Manager, Customer Success Engineer, VP of Product, engineering, and QA to deliver an optimal experience.

Role.

As the sole Product Designer on this project, I was responsible for refining user flows and designing an SMS assistant MVP.

Challenge.

OnTrac users can conveniently track their package status via the website or through SMS for quick updates on the go. While our company had an IVR channel and integration with Twilio, we did not have an SMS channel. Given the urgency of the requirement, I had to:

Understand the client’s needs and user expectations.
Design intuitive user flows that work within both webchat and SMS channels, keeping in mind the limitations of SMS.
Align designs with engineering and QA to ensure a smooth implementation.

solution ______________

Developed and launched an MVP for an SMS assistant that supported package tracking for one of Aisera's highest-volume enterprise customers.

Through strategic collaboration and rigorous iteration, our team developed and launched an SMS assistant that transformed package tracking for one of Aisera's highest-volume enterprise customers.

We addressed a critical business need: enabling customers to track their packages conveniently through text messaging at any time and location. And thus, we eliminated the need for customers to navigate websites or download mobile apps, creating a frictionless experience that worked seamlessly on any mobile device, regardless of internet connectivity.

Within the first 24 hours of deployment, our SMS channel successfully processing over 4K customer requests. This heavy utilizationn validated our system's robust architecture and design.

Screen recording of an MVP with test data.

Please contact me for more details on this project!

volhadouban@gmail.com

/research

Research in key areas.

The research strategy focused on four critical dimensions, each essential to creating a comprehensive understanding of the project's landscape.

Woman at a desk in front of a computer screen on a video call

First, I conducted an in-depth exploration of client needs through collaborative sessions with Ontrac and our internal teams. These meetings were crucial in uncovering the nuanced user experience requirements.

The client outlined an ambitious vision consisting of nine primary user flows dedicated to package status updates—ranging from initial pending status through transit to final delivery. This complex workflow demanded a comprehensive mapping of user interactions and potential scenarios.

Simultaneously, I concentrated on defining the project's scope, recognizing that a clear, realistic MVP was fundamental to setting achievable timelines and managing stakeholder expectations.

The technical feasibility exploration was equally critical. Working closely with our engineering team, I facilitated discussions about the technical complexities—specifically, the integration capabilities between SMS technologies, Twilio's platform, and Salesforce's API ecosystem.

Analysis of the client's historical data revealed significant user engagement volumes, with averaging at 20-30K monthly requests through their webchat channel alone. This substantial volume provided crucial insights for our system architecture and scaling decisions, indicating the need for robust infrastructure capable of handling concurrent requests efficiently. We anticipated potentially higher aggregate volumes once SMS capabilities were introduced, and especially during a peak holiday season.

design approach ______________

Refining user experience.

OnTrac provided our team with meticulously documented user flows based on extensive analysis of their existing webchat system's usage patterns. These flows represented real-world customer behaviors and preferences, offering insights into how their diverse user base interacted with package tracking services. By leveraging actual interaction data, we gained a deep understanding of common tracking scenarios and established user patterns that had already proven effective in their digital ecosystem.

Workflow secsions

This data-driven approach gave us a significant advantage in refininf the experience, as we could build upon validated user behaviors rather than starting from theoretical assumptions.

Following client meetings that highlighted the nuanced user experience requirements, I led our team through a comprehensive review and refinement process for the entire package tracking ecosystem. The primary "Track Package" workflow emerged as a complex, multi-layered system comprising several interconnected flows and subflows.

Initial prototypes

I collaborated closely with the CSE which provided critical insights into the intricacies of the workflow and the potential capabilities of the Salesforce API. We worked through clarifying some unknowns around their logistics, potential api call wait times.

To help OnTrac visualize the end-user experience, after a few rounds of flow improvements, I created prototypes of what the experience would look like within webchat which would also be deployed to their website. This allowed us to refine the experience even further before translating it to SMS, where the design constraints were more rigid.

The beginning of a flow

SMS Experience.

As we were getting closer to the final version of the flows, I started working on the SMS experience. Some of the challenges included:

Leveraging unified workflows for both web chat and SMS channels while optimizing for their unique constraints.

Limited UI elements, such as buttons and checkboxes, and the absence of RTF in SMS, used in forms and workflows.

Provide an easy opt-out option, compliance with (e.g., "Reply STOP to unsubscribe").

Use error handling for unexpected inputs (e.g., "Please try again or type 'HELP' for options.").

Avoid sounding too robotic—use a conversational tone.

Managing latency issues when retrieving package status updates from Salesforce.

Ensuring a seamless handoff to customer support agent in case of unresolvable queries or ability to submit a ticket request.

Handling multiple user input formats (e.g., numbers vs. text responses, emoji support).

Architecture and designs.

I worked with the UI engineer to understand the SMS channel architecture fundamental components and their interactions. At a high level, when Twilio receives the customer's message and forwards it to our system through a secure webhook, our system responds back via rest api.

This helped me understand a user flow of how an admin would create the channel in our system, how conversation sessions are processed, and how to show analytics.

Collaborating with Engineering and QA.

Working directly with our UI engineer, I facilitated detailed design reviews where we examined every interaction point, user flow, and edge cases. These collaborative sessions allowed us to refine the interface design and address potential implementation challenges before they could impact development.
‍
Additionally, I partnered with QA to review the end-to-end experience, ensuring the SMS assistant responded correctly to user inputs.

A team composed of a developer, product designer, and UX designer working together within figma.

QA and next steps.

The partnership with our QA team proved equally crucial in validating the end-to-end user experience. Together with the client, we developed and executed extensive test scenarios that simulated real-world user interactions, focusing particularly on the assistant's response accuracy and contextual appropriateness.

Through our testing, we uncovered several technical challenges that could have impacted the user experience in production, ranging from message formatting inconsistencies to edge cases in package status handling.

Working collaboratively with the development team, we addressed each issue, implementing and validating solutions in our staging environment.

Please contact me for designs and more details on this project!

volhadouban@gmail.com

/takeaways

Iterate Early.

Designing for SMS requires careful consideration of constraints—validating user flows before finalizing designs saved time. It was critical to finalize the flows prior to implementing the experience for SMS due to the nature of sms restrictions.

Cross-Team Collaboration.

Regular syncs with engineering, QA, and the customer success team ensured smooth execution, accelerated the project, and kept both the client and Aisera aligned throughout the process.