Xref

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Project overview

Xref (XF1) is a SaaS company that provides a secure and easy-to-use cloud-based platform that automates the collection of pre-employment reference checks.

Information provided here is limited due to a non-disclosure agreement.

The beginning

I've joined Xref in 2016 as "Employee 21” and also as the company's first Designer. At that time, our Dev Team was composed of no more than 5 developers and myself. As I usually do when joining a team, my first step was to perform stakeholder interviews to get to know the product, the problem they were trying to solve, their goals, competitors, and so on.

Once I had a better idea about the Why, the What, and the How Xref was doing things, I've started contributing to product improvements. As the sole designer in a startup, I was responsible for improving the usability of the different applications, for researching customer behavior, for handling web analytics, as well as any visual interface (e.g. presentations, email marketing, landing pages, annual report).

High-level user flow created to clarify the process

The product

The way reference checking is done by the majority of the market is a process that bothers all involved parties. Recruiters don't like calling referees to get a reference, referees don't like getting on the phone in the middle of the day to answer some odd questions, and candidates don't like to be blind throughout the process, never knowing if and when their references were contacted.

With Xref, recruiters can request references in seconds via an online process, candidates are able to manage and monitor the progress of their references, and referees are given the freedom to complete their feedback when it suits them via a simple and mobile-friendly flow.

Although Xref co-founders didn't try to follow a Design Thinking process, they unknowingly and naturally went through the Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test phases. The result is that the overall feedback from all involved parties is very positive and the industry is now shifting to an online reference standard.

As part of my plan to track user satisfaction and complaints, we've implemented this flow:

With the feedback received, we could continually improve the platform while also improving our social presence and reputation. In our headquarters in Australia by the time of writing, we went from less than 30 reviews with an average of 3.1 stars to 156 reviews averaging 4.4 stars.

I've worked with our internal Salesforce Team to record negative feedback as cases so our Support Team could categorize them. Then, I've worked closely with the Data Team to create a report where we could follow this feedback and act accordingly to reduce the number of cases.

Evolution

From 2016 to 2019 Xref evolved a lot. The employee count was close to 90, with the Dev Team getting close to one-third of that. The company got a Graphic Designer to assist Marketing and the creation of assets but I continued to be the sole Product Designer. Sales and platform usage grew at a really good pace.

After redesigning the platform to improve usability and also go through a rebranding phase, the bulk of my work consisted of transcribing C-level goals into prototypes that could be iterated until validation, followed by implementation.

Some of the activities I've performed to guide my work include user interviews, customer journey maps, and usability tests. Most days I would be at my computer analyzing data, prototyping, and supporting the Dev Team. From time to time I would go out of the office with a Sales or Support teammate to get closer to clients and do a bit of research.

Learnings, outcomes, & accolades

Since I've joined Xref until the moment of writing, we've got:

• 2019 CRN Impact Award Winners for the Exporting Innovation category
• Ranked 22 at 2018 Deloitte Tech Fast 50
• Ranked 276 in the Deloitte APAC Tech Fast 500 Awards
• Gold Medalists in the 2018 HRD Australia Service Provider awards, in both the Pre-employment Screening and Recruitment Systems categories.
• Smart Company, Smart 50 Awards - Ranked 3rd for growth
• Australian Business Awards 2017 - Winner for Cloud Innovation
• Silver at the 2017 Sydney Design Awards

Most of Xref clients are extremely happy with the service provided. We were able to retain more than 95% of clients every year and the feedback from them was super positive. Xref as a company also performed really well over the years having a steady growth and increasing sales, usage, number of clients, and world reach.

I've learned a lot and honed my skills during these years since I had to wear many hats. My personal challenge was to juggle everything from research to implementation while also trying to make the business more data-driven. In a UX maturity scale, Xref was still around "stage 4" (Dedicated UX Budget) without any systematic processes in place and lots of decisions made based on management opinions. I was unsuccessful in my many attempts to convince the business to invest more in design and to expand the team so we could deepen our research and improve the product further.

My experience at Xref reinforced my belief that having a multidisciplinary and diverse team working collaboratively is the best way to find good customer-centric solutions.