Supporting SME communities with Twill by Maersk

Group project with Elena Colombo, Jordi Olivé, Laura Orozco, Elisa Palmieri, and Karthik Rao

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The Problem

Twill approached us with the issue of acquiring and retaining SME customers. They were hoping for short term solutions which could help them grow their customer base of small and medium-sized enterprises while also helping improve their customer relations.

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How might we develop brand loyalty to Twill while acquiring new SME prospects?

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The Solution

To help Twill develop their brand and further support small and medium enterprises with their logistics needs, our team designed a community platform and loyalty program that allows small and medium enterprises to connect and share digital logistics knowledge.

The features of the community platform and loyalty program include:

• forum discussions
• Twill updates and logistics news
• networking connection
• customer support
• features feedback
• referrals and rewards program

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Primary and Secondary Research

To better understand the market, our team conducted desk research, looking into logistics trends and news. We also had the opportunity to interview key stakeholders at Maersk and Twill to hear their needs and insider perspectives. Through this research, our team identified trust and relationships as key points that can aid in tackling Twill's objective of fostering better relations with SMEs.

Competitor Analysis

We looked at what direct competitors were doing in terms of customer support and we also examined case studies of companies in other sectors to understand how they deal with customer acquisition and support. What we noticed is that though many logistics companies provide individual learning resources, no one has aggregated these into a community. SMEs could benefit from learning from each other and from connecting with other businesses. Fostering a business and logistics community with knowledge sharing could be a valuable opportunity for Maersk and Twill.

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Service Development

After presenting our research and proposal to the Maersk team, Maersk wanted to pursue the idea. We then focused on refining the service offering as well as understanding the user journey, backstage processes and actors involved in creating and supporting an online logistics community. We wanted to ensure a seamless integration of the community for both new and existing customers, so we mapped out the journey for both user types.

Storyboarding

We started by using storyboards to frame different user scenarios. We visualized how businesses may use the forum and refer other business partners to the Twill platform. The community could be a valuable logistics knowledge resource for small businesses who don't have their own logistics manager and logistics expertise in-house.

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Wireframing

Once we better understood our user scenarios, we started wireframing how the community and loyalty program could be implemented. We wanted the community feature to fit in seamlessly with the existing Twill platform, so we decided to connect it through the top navigation bar and to add CTA buttons throughout the platform which allowed the user to start a booking, driving them back to the main Twill service. We also added a rewards section to the profile as well as a referral page to help with customer acquisition.

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Mapping out the stakeholder ecosystem

Once we had outlined how the service would function, we also mapped the stakeholder ecosystem to understand which actors were needed to support and maintain the platform. This included the Twillers team, content providers, and promoters of the service and community.

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Final Prototype

We created a final prototype, using the Twill branding, to present our design proposal to Maersk. You can try the prototype below:

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The final service presents benefits for both users and for the Twill and Maersk team. For SMEs, it provides them:

• access to digital logistics knowledge and updates to Twill and logistics news
• networking opportunities and with other businesses and partners
• customer support
• loyalty rewards

For the Twill and Maersk team, it can provides them with:

• direct customer feedback
• increased brand visibility and improved reputation
• an additional channel through which to drive traffic to Twill
• improved customer relations and loyalty

Implementation Plan

Before handing off the service proposal, our team created an implementation plan which explains the steps and estimated timeline for developing, testing and launching the service.

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