Getting Leads

Getting Leads

Ubiquiti Networks has a good reputation for listening to its customers. They have a really active forum and encourage engineers, product managers and designers to converse with customers directly. One thing we learned through those conversations was that many W.I.S.P.s didn't have a great way to get leads online.

This lead (pun intended ) us to creating a wireless internet online search tool. This tool 'the Ubiquiti World Network' or UWN would act as a database of wireless internet providers. Here's an internet archive link. The web tool would allow users to input their address and view all the wireless internet service providers in their area. Now, these are providers like Spectrum or AT&T, these are true small businesses and professional-grade internet providers.  The service provider would then be able to generate leads from the traffic which would, in turn, feed our Leads Management Software.

Ubiquiti Networks has a good reputation for listening to its customers. They have a really active forum and encourage engineers, product managers and designers to converse with customers directly. One thing we learned through those conversations was that many W.I.S.P.s didn't have a great way to get leads online.

This lead (pun intended ) us to creating a wireless internet online search tool. This tool 'the Ubiquiti World Network' or UWN would act as a database of wireless internet providers. Here's an internet archive link. The web tool would allow users to input their address and view all the wireless internet service providers in their area. Now, these are providers like Spectrum or AT&T, these are true small businesses and professional-grade internet providers.  The service provider would then be able to generate leads from the traffic which would, in turn, feed our Leads Management Software.

Consistency in design is made exponentially harder when building a suite of products simultaneously.

Consistency in design is made exponentially harder when building a suite of products simultaneously.

The Rule of the Three

The Rule of the Three

The product suite was divided into 3 different systems: a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, a lead management system and operations management software. Yep. Three very large and pretty intimidating things to build from the ground up. But hey...asn John Heywood would say "Rome wasn't' built in a day."

A lead management system looks at sales activities, customer touchpoints, contact records and communication with prospective customers. We wanted to give our customers an end to end experience that they could, in turn, provide their customers. Our LMS system allowed the WISP to catalog, track and contact leads. It also allowed them to view their progress on a dashboard along with various other data visualizations.

Part of my responsibility was combining already used elements into one cohesive whole. We had several different iterations of sidebars, tables and other UI elements that needed to be streamlined to lessen the cognitive load of our users.

The product suite was divided into 3 different systems: a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, a lead management system and operations management software. Yep. Three very large and pretty intimidating things to build from the ground up. But hey...asn John Heywood would say "Rome wasn't' built in a day."

A lead management system looks at sales activities, customer touchpoints, contact records and communication with prospective customers. We wanted to give our customers an end to end experience that they could, in turn, provide their customers. Our LMS system allowed the WISP to catalog, track and contact leads. It also allowed them to view their progress on a dashboard along with various other data visualizations.

Part of my responsibility was combining already used elements into one cohesive whole. We had several different iterations of sidebars, tables and other UI elements that needed to be streamlined to lessen the cognitive load of our users.

Where Did It All Go?

Where Did It All Go?

Our initial pilot program had several hundred of our 'super users' using our subscriber portal and UWN network to get leads and bill their customers. Towards the final 3 months, I think our final tally was around 200 WISPs using the software on a daily basis. But alas it was short-lived. Though my team was the furthest along, all in all, Ubiquiti wanted to release a suite of tools together. Another integral tool, an Operations Controller, hit too many roadblocks to justify extending the deadline any further and at the end of the year, all our efforts were shelved. 

Our initial pilot program had several hundred of our 'super users' using our subscriber portal and UWN network to get leads and bill their customers. Towards the final 3 months, I think our final tally was around 200 WISPs using the software on a daily basis. But alas it was short-lived. Though my team was the furthest along, all in all, Ubiquiti wanted to release a suite of tools together. Another integral tool, an Operations Controller, hit too many roadblocks to justify extending the deadline any further and at the end of the year, all our efforts were shelved.