Improving customer loyalty for small & medium businesses
I was hired as a Principal Product Designer and promoted to Head of Design in 8 months. As a generalist playing the player-coach role, I designed various experiences, scaled the design function, and helped CandyBar grow its business revenue.
Summary
I established design quality benchmarks, and a continuous research practice at the company.
I created design hiring rubrics, interviewing strategies, and leveling frameworks for a small design department, inclusive of product design, UX research, and marketing.
Drove revenue growth by influencing product, marketing, and customer support functions as a key member of the leadership team.
Created a design system to unify components, styles, grids, typography, and iconography to improve the efficiency of design delivery.
Design Team
Desmond Chua, Researcher
Pham Thanh Ha, Product Designer
Bobby Kariyatty, Sr. Product Designer
Joo Tat Low, Sr. Product Designer
Divyanshu Thakur, Product Designer
Rachel Leung, Product Designer
Timeline
2018-2021
Improving customer loyalty for small & medium businesses
I was hired as a Principal Product Designer and promoted to Head of Design in 8 months. As a generalist playing the player-coach role, I designed various experiences, scaled the design function, and helped CandyBar grow its business revenue.
Summary
I established design quality benchmarks, and a continuous research practice at the company.
I created design hiring rubrics, interviewing strategies, and leveling frameworks for a small design department, inclusive of product design, UX research, and marketing.
Drove revenue growth by influencing product, marketing, and customer support functions as a key member of the leadership team.
Created a design system to unify components, styles, grids, typography, and iconography to improve the efficiency of design delivery.
Design Team
Desmond Chua, Researcher
Pham Thanh Ha, Product Designer
Bobby Kariyatty, Sr. Product Designer
Joo Tat Low, Sr. Product Designer
Divyanshu Thakur, Product Designer
Rachel Leung, Product Designer
Timeline
2018-2021
Improving customer loyalty for small & medium businesses
I was hired as a Principal Product Designer and promoted to Head of Design in 8 months. As a generalist playing the player-coach role, I designed various experiences, scaled the design function, and helped CandyBar grow its business revenue.
Summary
I established design quality benchmarks, and a continuous research practice at the company.
I created design hiring rubrics, interviewing strategies, and leveling frameworks for a small design department, inclusive of product design, UX research, and marketing.
Drove revenue growth by influencing product, marketing, and customer support functions as a key member of the leadership team.
Created a design system to unify components, styles, grids, typography, and iconography to improve the efficiency of design delivery.
Design Team
Desmond Chua, Researcher
Pham Thanh Ha, Product Designer
Bobby Kariyatty, Sr. Product Designer
Joo Tat Low, Sr. Product Designer
Divyanshu Thakur, Product Designer
Rachel Leung, Product Designer
Timeline
2018-2021
Overview
CandyBar is a digital loyalty program for brick-and-mortar stores. Merchants can reward customers who return and turn new walk-ins into repeat customers.
Key projects
I worked on many more projects during my time at CandyBar; if you're interested in hearing about any of them, reach out to me.
Redesigning loyalty rewards
Business need
CandyBar is a point of sale loyalty program for brick & mortar merchants. The existing solution was confusing and had a low usage.
Goal
We needed to design a solution that was intuitive for customers, increased loyalty usage and reward redemption while not slowing down queues.
Personal challenge
Conducting field research was challenging since we needed to observe customer behavior and interaction without slowing down peak lunch hour queues at quick-serve restaurants like ice cream or salad bars.
Results
12% higher rewards usage
23% higher engagement
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual values for these metrics.
Improving onboarding for merchants
Business need
CandyBar was a newly launched product figuring out its product-market fit. Merchants required additional handholding to set up the loyalty program in their brick-and-mortar stores. Over 80% of new merchants churned before their 30-day free trial ended.
Goal
Improve the top-of funnel onboarding experience so that once a merchant signs up they understand the core product offering and become a paying subscriber.
Role
I led design, product strategy and collaborated with other key stakeholders at identifying and prioritizing key initiatives.
Results
64% higher onboarding completion
147% increase in active merchants
2.9% uplift in paying subscribers
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual values for these metrics.
CandyBar's design system
Business need
CandyBar had many instances of workflows and components being built in isolation. Over time, this became unwieldy to maintain and slowly ate away at our internal efficiency.
Goal
Create a zero-to-one design system that uses the atomic system that unifies and reuses components, styles, grids, typography, and usage guidelines to improve the speed of design delivery.
Role
I led design, set up the framework, shared best practices and collaborated with the engineering team on a 3-month project.
Results
90% coverage for the design system
Faster implementation speed
Improved app performance
CandyBar brand refresh
Business need
To update the brand that felt dated, lacked personality and didn’t reflect the direction the company was heading in. We also needed to include our new product offering on the marketing website.
Goal
The brand refresh project hoped to modernize the company's outdated and unloved previous brand while improving sign up conversions.
Role
I led web design, branding while collaborating with the marketing team. I also brought in an outside illustrator Matthew Wong of Hyperfolk Studios.
Results
5.9% increase in overall signups
None of this would have been possible without the wonderful, kind and amazing team of designers, engineers, and marketers from sunny Singapore.
Dinesh Raju
CEO, ReferralCandy
Ben focused the design team and entire company around a customer centric approach for our product development. This resulted in rave reviews from our merchants. He also significantly upgraded the design aesthetic across our products.
Key projects
I worked on many more projects during my time at CandyBar; if you're interested in hearing about any of them, reach out to me.
Redesigning loyalty rewards
Business need
CandyBar is a point of sale loyalty program for brick & mortar merchants. The existing solution was confusing and had a low usage.
Goal
We needed to design a solution that was intuitive for customers, increased loyalty usage and reward redemption while not slowing down queues.
Personal challenge
Conducting field research was challenging since we needed to observe customer behavior and interaction without slowing down peak lunch hour queues at quick-serve restaurants like ice cream or salad bars.
Results
12% higher rewards usage
23% higher engagement
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual values for these metrics.
Improving onboarding for merchants
Business need
CandyBar was a newly launched product figuring out its product-market fit. Merchants required additional handholding to set up the loyalty program in their brick-and-mortar stores. Over 80% of new merchants churned before their 30-day free trial ended.
Goal
Improve the top-of funnel onboarding experience so that once a merchant signs up they understand the core product offering and become a paying subscriber.
Role
I led design, product strategy and collaborated with other key stakeholders at identifying and prioritizing key initiatives.
Results
64% higher onboarding completion
147% increase in active merchants
2.9% uplift in paying subscribers
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual values for these metrics.
CandyBar's design system
Business need
CandyBar had many instances of workflows and components being built in isolation. Over time, this became unwieldy to maintain and slowly ate away at our internal efficiency.
Goal
Create a zero-to-one design system that uses the atomic system that unifies and reuses components, styles, grids, typography, and usage guidelines to improve the speed of design delivery.
Role
I led design, set up the framework, shared best practices and collaborated with the engineering team on a 3-month project.
Results
90% coverage for the design system
Faster implementation speed
Improved app performance
CandyBar brand refresh
Business need
To update the brand that felt dated, lacked personality and didn’t reflect the direction the company was heading in. We also needed to include our new product offering on the marketing website.
Goal
The brand refresh project hoped to modernize the company's outdated and unloved previous brand while improving sign up conversions.
Role
I led web design, branding while collaborating with the marketing team. I also brought in an outside illustrator Matthew Wong of Hyperfolk Studios.
Results
5.9% increase in overall signups
None of this would have been possible without the wonderful, kind and amazing team of designers, engineers, and marketers from sunny Singapore.
Dinesh Raju
CEO, ReferralCandy
Ben focused the design team and entire company around a customer centric approach for our product development. This resulted in rave reviews from our merchants. He also significantly upgraded the design aesthetic across our products.
Key projects
I worked on many more projects during my time at CandyBar; if you're interested in hearing about any of them, reach out to me.
Redesigning loyalty rewards
Business need
CandyBar is a point of sale loyalty program for brick & mortar merchants. The existing solution was confusing and had a low usage.
Goal
We needed to design a solution that was intuitive for customers, increased loyalty usage and reward redemption while not slowing down queues.
Personal challenge
Conducting field research was challenging since we needed to observe customer behavior and interaction without slowing down peak lunch hour queues at quick-serve restaurants like ice cream or salad bars.
Results
12% higher rewards usage
23% higher engagement
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual values for these metrics.
Improving onboarding for merchants
Business need
CandyBar was a newly launched product figuring out its product-market fit. Merchants required additional handholding to set up the loyalty program in their brick-and-mortar stores. Over 80% of new merchants churned before their 30-day free trial ended.
Goal
Improve the top-of funnel onboarding experience so that once a merchant signs up they understand the core product offering and become a paying subscriber.
Role
I led design, product strategy and collaborated with other key stakeholders at identifying and prioritizing key initiatives.
Results
64% higher onboarding completion
147% increase in active merchants
2.9% uplift in paying subscribers
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual values for these metrics.
CandyBar's design system
Business need
CandyBar had many instances of workflows and components being built in isolation. Over time, this became unwieldy to maintain and slowly ate away at our internal efficiency.
Goal
Create a zero-to-one design system that uses the atomic system that unifies and reuses components, styles, grids, typography, and usage guidelines to improve the speed of design delivery.
Role
I led design, set up the framework, shared best practices and collaborated with the engineering team on a 3-month project.
Results
90% coverage for the design system
Faster implementation speed
Improved app performance
CandyBar brand refresh
Business need
To update the brand that felt dated, lacked personality and didn’t reflect the direction the company was heading in. We also needed to include our new product offering on the marketing website.
Goal
The brand refresh project hoped to modernize the company's outdated and unloved previous brand while improving sign up conversions.
Role
I led web design, branding while collaborating with the marketing team. I also brought in an outside illustrator Matthew Wong of Hyperfolk Studios.
Results
5.9% increase in overall signups
None of this would have been possible without the wonderful, kind and amazing team of designers, engineers, and marketers from sunny Singapore.
Dinesh Raju
CEO, ReferralCandy
Ben focused the design team and entire company around a customer centric approach for our product development. This resulted in rave reviews from our merchants. He also significantly upgraded the design aesthetic across our products.