How User Research, Product Management and UX Design Maximized DriverReach’s Impact

Think about how often you purchase something online. Whether you’re ordering meal kits from Hello Fresh or new office supplies from Amazon, chances are, you’re one of the millions of people who engage in online shopping every day.

Driving this thriving e-commerce economy is trucking and logistics. Without dedicated drivers ready to cross states and deliver product, the e-commerce market simply couldn’t grow at the aggressive rate we’ve witnessed. 

Take it from Indianapolis entrepreneur Jeremy Reymer, who in 2017 founded the recruiting and compliance management platform DriverReach for the trucking industry. To help the trucking industry thrive, companies need access to qualified drivers, and fast.

The DriverReach platform deeply understands an industry problem and delivers tailored solutions through a powerful digital product that remains responsive to its users. With most recruiters used to a non-tech or low-tech environment, DriverReach had to show how its digital platform could make driver recruiting easier, faster and more compliant. 

Problem

Jeremy first approached Innovatemap CEO Mike Reynolds in 2017 to go a step further: he wanted to transform an internal tool that supported recruitment efforts at his own staffing company, Driving Ambition, and amplify it into a powerful product that could help any trucking company. 

“I knew if I could do that successfully,” Jeremy said, “then I would help way more companies than I was able to help by just focusing on my staffing company.” 

With an intimate understanding of the industry and a network to match, Jeremy had no problem achieving product-market fit. But he knew if he wanted to get his product into the hands of more customers and deeply impact truck driver recruiting, he needed Innovatemap’s expertise in product design, brand and product marketing to (1) design the right product and (2) effectively communicate the product’s value to a wider audience. 

The Innovatemap team who partnered with DriverReach includes: 

• Lacey Lavies (Executive Partner, Product Strategy & Client Experience)
• Jon Moore (Principal, Product Design)
• Andy Kennedy (Principal, Brand Strategy & Design)
• Parker McCullough (Senior Brand Designer)

Solution

With Driving Ambition’s applicant tracking tool as a starting point, the Innovatemap team made the DriverReach product easy to use and understand. To ensure our product decisions were right for users, we started by conducting user research to understand the common challenges recruiters face. 

What we learned, Lacey said, is “we had to design the product in a way that was super guided and intuitive so that users could pick it up without training. We needed to serve a lot of users, without needing human interaction to get started. In addition, these recruiters talk to so many applicants, all in varying stages of the hiring process, so keeping the tool streamlined and clear of clutter was also paramount.” 

Following user research, we extracted the value already inherent in the internal tool, coupled with what we learned users needed, and translated this into workflows and concept designs for the DriverReach product. These concepts covered existing and new capabilities to add even further value for users, in addition to a new onboarding experience to guide users through self-serve setup and enablement.

Product management and product design expertise coupled with the deep knowledge of industry experts maximizes the feature value and usability.

In parallel with the UX renovation and product evolution, we also refreshed their product marketing and brand to appeal to buyers. On the positioning and messaging side, our teams worked together through workshops to extract and understand the value being provided by the DriverReach digital product. We then translated the product’s value into language that is compelling, approachable and understandable to buyers. We refreshed DriverReach’s visual identity as well.

All of this came together through smart messaging, a website facelift and a variety of one-sheeters and trade show materials — benefiting sales reps and buyers alike.

Takeaways

When Jeremy set out to expand his digital product, he went from being a traditional services company to a specialized B2B SaaS company. In that shift, he had to recognize quickly how different those worlds were, and he had to find experts who could help him adapt. 

As Jeremy reflected, “I recognized that I was using this technology to solve my problem, which is the same problem that every other company that hires truck drivers has: navigating a highly regulated industry.” Jeremy spoke to his desire to learn about tech and product, but said he realized early in his interactions with our digital product agency, “I can’t be the expert. I needed to rely on the people who are.” 

Lacey explains how this is an example of an ideal partnership: “Jeremy had the vision, he had a star CTO, and they trusted our expertise in product and user experience design. We had really great collaboration in defining and designing an intuitive and delightful user experience that solved real problems for users. This high trust relationship and close collaboration also allowed us to push the envelope in key areas like guided onboarding and product-led growth.”

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