Project Summary

This project aimed to create a unified platform for a comprehensive CRM solution, integrating customer relationship management, product analytics, and marketing automation.

Unlike other platforms that specialize in one area—whether it’s CRM, analytics, or marketing—Harp CRM combined all these features into a single, powerful tool.

By focusing on seamless integration and user-friendly design, it targeted businesses looking to streamline their operations, gain valuable insights, and automate their marketing efforts, all without the need to juggle multiple systems.

Problem Statement

Before the introduction of Harp CRM, businesses struggled with several challenges related to managing customer relationships, product performance, and marketing efforts. These challenges included:

• Fragmented systems that required switching between multiple platforms for CRM, product analytics, and marketing automation.

• Difficulty in gaining comprehensive insights into customer interactions and product usage due to disjointed data sources.

• Inefficiencies in automating and managing marketing campaigns across various channels.

• Limited integration between CRM, analytics, and marketing tools, leading to data silos and inconsistent decision-making.

Goals

The primary goals of designing Harp CRM were to:

• Simplify the management of customer relationships for businesses.

• Provide deep insights into product performance through integrated analytics.

• Increase overall efficiency and satisfaction by eliminating the need for multiple disconnected tools.

Research

1. Market Analysis

   I began the research phase with a thorough analysis of the market to understand the landscape of CRM tools, product analytics platforms, and marketing automation solutions. I evaluated competitors such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Make and Zapier to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

   
   

2. User Research

   To ensure that the design would align with user needs, I conducted interviews and surveys with potential users, including small business owners, product managers, and marketing professionals. My goal was to gather insights into their daily workflows, pain points, and expectations from a CRM, analytics, and marketing automation tool. Key findings included:

   Fragmented Workflows: Users often had to switch between multiple tools to manage customer relationships, analyze product performance, and run marketing campaigns. This led to inefficiencies and potential errors.

   Data Silos: The separation of CRM data from analytics and marketing automation created data silos, making it difficult for users to get a comprehensive view of their customers and products.

   Complexity: Many existing tools were perceived as overly complex, especially for small businesses with limited resources, making it challenging to fully utilize their features.

   
   

Design Approach

1. Ideation and Conceptualization: I started the design process by conducting brainstorming sessions and sketching out initial concepts based on the research insights. The goal was to create a unified platform that seamlessly integrates CRM, product analytics, and marketing automation. I focused on identifying key features that would address the needs of Sarah, Mike, and Lisa while ensuring an intuitive user experience.

2. Wireframing: Created wireframes to outline the layout and structure of CRM management, analytics dashboards, and marketing automation interfaces.

3. Prototyping: Developed interactive prototypes for user testing, focusing on usability and feature integration.

4. User Testing: Conducted usability testing with key personas to gather feedback and refine the design.

5. Final Refinement: Made adjustments based on feedback, ensuring a seamless and accessible user experience.

Visual Design

Harp’s visual design emphasizes a sleek and contemporary interface, using a cohesive colour scheme and clear iconography. The design elements are crafted to instil confidence in users and convey a sense of reliability and trustworthiness

Conclusion

Designing Harp CRM allowed me to create a user-focused solution that improved productivity for sales teams and managers. Despite challenges in balancing feature complexity and simplicity, iterative design and collaboration led to a successful outcome. Moving forward, I’ll continue to refine the product based on user feedback, with plans to introduce AI-driven automation while maintaining ease of use.