Central Dispatch
I was brought into Cox Automotive's Logistics division to redesign and redefine Central Dispatch, one of their largest core service offerings.
Central Dispatch is the market-leading load board for automotive and vehicle transport nationwide. Customers of various types subscribe to CD in order to gain access to the largest and most diverse collection of shipping and vehicle carrying companies across the country. They can post vehicles for transport, peruse listings, and track details about their vehicle as it is moved.
I was hired to redesign the vehicle search experience, which is a keystone of the experience for customers. As the project progressed, the scope widened and I led a team of designers as we redesigned numerous aspects of the broader CD experience across user types.
Company
Cox Automotive
Year
2020 - 2021
Focus
Interactive Design
Tools
Sketch
Axure
Figma
The is the revised Search experience.
This is a the Dispatch listings.
This is an early iteration of the customer rating experience.
The is the revised Search experience.
PROBLEM
Central Dispatch was the established market leader in automotive shipping when I came onboard. The problem we faced was that the site had not been updated in many years. It was beginning to lag behind new upstart competition. There was a real risk to CD's market share if we couldn't begin to deliver tangible improvements to what the service offered its paying customers.
DISCOVERY & DESIGN
I stepped into a project that knew it had a problem brewing. Its customers were beginning to feel as though Central Dispatch was no longer leading the market in service functionality and quality. Numerous smaller services were establishing themselves with a promise of being more modern and better able to better react to an ever-shifting market. This is a classic problem for well-established brands and services.
We were fortunate to have access to many customers who were eager to share their thoughts with us. We gathered loads of information informing us that the services offered were no longer meeting modern customer needs. We set out to begin addressing some of the biggest pain points.
The project grew in scope as we realized how much needed to be done to properly compete. We started by redesigning the core Search experience, but quickly added many other aspects of the service to our list of parts to address. This included the dispatching work flows and the customer rating experience.
Ratings was especially important to our customers because the legacy implementation created unforeseen opportunities for aggressive weaponization of the process. Bad actors could game the system and negatively impact the business operations of other competing companies. We had to work diligently to address these concerns or risk losing customers who were being impacted by the service.
We overhauled the entire Ratings process and created something that was simpler, more detailed, and safer for our customers.
DELIVERY
We delivered a host of upgrades to numerous CD services. This work was done across multiple software tools, teams, and devices.
The work I helped guide laid the groundwork for years of Central Dispatch enhancements. Multiple service enhancements I spearheaded were still being implemented years later. The enhancements helped keep Central Dispatch atop the market and provided a better, more valuable service offering for all of CD's customers.
TAKEAWAYS
My time on Central Dispatch was transformational for me. I learned a lot about service design and that has helped guide me ever since. Knowing my work has such a tangible impact on people's livelihood's is something that keeps me focused on what matters when I design: the user and their needs.