Challenge: QuickBooks Live bookkeepers faced fragmented workflows, inefficient tools, and a lack of structured support, making it difficult to deliver seamless, high-quality service to customers.
Hypothesis: By designing an integrated, streamlined bookkeeper experience with centralized tools, structured workflows, and better resource accessibility, we could increase efficiency, improve service quality, and enhance both bookkeeper and customer satisfaction.
QuickBooks Live is Intuit’s on-demand bookkeeping service, connecting small businesses with certified bookkeepers for real-time financial assistance. While the platform was designed to simplify bookkeeping for clients, the tools and workflows for bookkeepers delivering the service were inefficient, fragmented, and inconsistent. Without a centralized system, bookkeepers struggled with disconnected communication channels, complex task management, and a lack of integrated support resources. These inefficiencies slowed response times, increased frustration, and impacted the overall quality of service.
The challenge was to redesign the bookkeeper experience to provide a seamless, intuitive, and scalable workflow that empowered them to deliver consistent, high-quality service. As the lead customer experience and service designer, I was responsible for understanding the unique needs of bookkeepers and developing an improved service delivery model that streamlined their interactions with clients and internal systems.
To develop a solution, I conducted in-depth research to uncover pain points in the existing system. I led qualitative studies, including interviews and shadowing sessions with bookkeepers, to map their daily workflows and identify friction points that created inefficiencies. Through journey mapping, I outlined the end-to-end bookkeeper experience, highlighting critical touchpoints where interventions could make the most impact.
With these insights, I facilitated co-design workshops with bookkeepers, product managers, and engineers to collaboratively prototype solutions. Testing iterative designs allowed us to refine the approach and ensure the final solution addressed the most pressing operational challenges. The redesigned bookkeeper experience focused on three core areas: creating a centralized dashboard that provided a single view of client information and tasks, streamlining communication through an integrated messaging system that connected bookkeepers and clients in real time, and enhancing access to resources with a structured knowledge repository to support bookkeepers in delivering consistent service.
The improved bookkeeper experience resulted in significant efficiency gains. By consolidating workflows and integrating essential tools into a single interface, bookkeepers reduced the time spent on administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on providing value to clients. The structured communication system improved responsiveness and reduced miscommunication, leading to a more seamless client experience.
These changes also had a direct impact on job satisfaction among bookkeepers. By removing frustration and unnecessary complexity, the new system created a more intuitive and supportive work environment, which led to improved engagement and retention. Clients, in turn, benefited from more reliable and consistent service, resulting in higher satisfaction scores and increased trust in QuickBooks Live.
Empowering service providers is critical to delivering an exceptional customer experience. By focusing on the internal experience of QuickBooks Live bookkeepers, I ensured that they had the tools and resources needed to perform at their best. This work reinforced the principle that improving service operations behind the scenes leads directly to higher customer satisfaction and business success.
Role: Lead Customer Experience & Service Designer for QuickBooks Live
Challenge: Fragmented tools and inefficient workflows impacting service quality
Approach: Conducted user research, journey mapping, co-design workshops, and iterative testing
Solution: Increased efficiency, reducing administrative workload, improved service quality leading to faster response times, higher bookkeeper job satisfaction reducing frustration and turnover, enhanced client experience driving better retention and trust