Embark for Veterinarians: Chat
OVERVIEW
Embark for Veterinarians is a web app that enables veterinary practices to easily incorporate genetic testing for dogs into their daily workflow. With this product, users can efficiently manage patient genetic testing by quickly adding new patients, checking the status of swabs being processed, ordering more swabs if necessary, and seeing which patients have results ready. This streamlined process helps veterinary practices provide personalized care for their patients by providing insights into breed ancestry, potential health risks, and genetic traits. By integrating genetic testing into their workflow, veterinary practices can improve the lives of their patients and deliver better care.
CHALLENGES
Build a chat feature so that veterinary practices can easily get their questions answered.
Design a chat feature to direct users to articles linked in the resource center.
Build a live chat feature so that users can directly speak to an Embark veterinary genetecist without needing to call or email.
DISCOVERY
To help design and build the chat feature for the Embark dashboard, I collaborated with the sales and customer support teams to gain insights into the most common questions and issues that our veterinary customers encounter. I then worked to narrow down the key topics and questions that we needed to address in the chat feature. Additionally, I researched various platforms that we could use to build the chat feature and ultimately decided on Zendesk due to its functionality and ability to integrate with Embark’s existing systems.
USER FLOW AND DESIGN
Once I had a good understanding of the most common questions and issues that veterinary users encountered with the Embark product, I began building a decision tree in Miro. This decision tree was essential in helping me determine how the user flow would look and how users would navigate through the chat feature. It helped me identify at which point it would be appropriate for the live chat to take over and connect users with a veterinary geneticist or customer support.
Since the chat feature was built using Zendesk, there were limitations in terms of customizing the user interface. However, I was able to make it seamlessly fit into the Embark dashboard by matching the colors and button styles to those found in myEV. This helped to make the chat feel like a natural extension of the Embark platform, and not a separate third-party tool.
USER TESTING
To test the effectiveness of the chat feature, we released it for a two-week trial period. During this time, we tracked metrics to see how many users were utilizing the chat to get their questions answered. We also monitored how feasible it was for our veterinary geneticists to be available to answer questions regarding test results live. In addition, we gathered feedback from both users and geneticists about their experience with the chat feature, including any pain points or areas of improvement. This allowed us to make adjustments to the feature before fully integrating it into the Embark dashboard.
KEY FINDINGS
Users that used the chat feature were able to easily get their questions answered or were directed to a resource that could.
The decision tree format of the chat was effective in guiding users to the information they needed.
Our veterinary geneticists were readily able to allocate a portion of their workday to be available for live chat support when customers had questions about their patient's results.
NEXT STEPS
After a two-week trial period, it was observed that the chat feature on the Embark dashboard was not being utilized as much as expected. We decided to extend the trial period by an additional two weeks before deciding on any changes. I conducted extensive testing to ensure that the outcomes were in line with their initial hypothesis. However, after thorough analysis and discussions, my team and I concluded that the chat feature was not meeting the needs of users as anticipated. Consequently, we made the decision to remove the chat feature from the Embark dashboard.