Case Study: Lexmark’s Toner Subscriptions Revolutionize Customer Satisfaction

TL;DR

My role:
User Experience team lead, lead designer (UI/UX), digital designer

My cross-functional team:
Front end developers, back end developers, product fulfillment managers, writers, data scientists, digital designers, SME’s, business analysts

Summary of Case Study:

• Created end-to-end user experience for new global pilot subscription programs for small and medium business owners
• Created UX artifacts including technical user flows, microframes, and wireframes for web pages and program portal website
• Created UI and built the global webpages for the program in Adobe Experience Manager CMS
• Collaborated on new logo and all promotional materials

Outcomes:

• The UX/UI/Creative work helped create 922 new enrollment flows for 5 countries in both toner and hardware subscriptions
• This program (based on our team’s work) was featured in Entrepreneur magazine (Oct. 2023)​ and featured with link back in Forbes (Nov. 2023)
• Postive customer feedback:

  “My toner subscription arrives right before I need it without me doing anything!”​
  “Overall great value for the program—saving in time and money.​”​​
  “Less thoughts about running out of toner is beneficial to us as a small business.”​
  “Appreciate not having to think about when to purchase toner by being in this program.”

 

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New opportunities:

Lexmark International, Inc., a leading manufacturer of laser printers and imaging products based in Lexington, Kentucky, aimed to expand its market reach by entering the Service as a Subscription (SaaS) arena. Recognizing the needs of small and medium business (SMB) owners, Lexmark embarked on creating the OnePrint™ toner subscription program, designed to provide hassle-free printing solutions for busy entrepreneurs. 

Defining the goal:

Lexmark sought to test the viability and appeal of the OnePrint™ SaaS pilot program among SMB owners. Essentially, the business wanted to offer subscriptions to SMB’s to make running out of toner a thing of the past. At Lexmark, our extensive experience with SMB demographics and personas has shown us that this segment is often characterized as ‘busy,’ ‘multi-tasking,’ and ‘budget-conscious.’ Unfortunately, budget limitations prevented my team for doing extensive user research and so I relied heavily on analytics and heuristics to guide the user experience for the pilot. Drawing from these research methods, I was able to create an end-to-end digital user experience that facilitated customer understanding, selection, and enrollment in the program. 

 

Ways of working and implementation:

Utilizing Agile and Product Development Lifecycle methodologies, I collaborated with cross-functional teams to craft customer-focused user flows, technical user flows, wireframes and user interfaces for the OnePrint™ program. The user flows were designed to guide customers through subscription options, streamline the selection and checkout process, and provide a client portal for managing subscription details and financial information. 

User flows that showed end-to-end technical processes:

Microframes that mapped out the enrollment site:

Wireframes that shaped the structure and UI:

Working closely with developers, writers, and content strategists, I ensured the integration of UI elements across multiple languages and websites. Additionally, collaboration with external agencies and internal design teams facilitated the development of branding materials for the OnePrint™ SaaS offering, including webpages, dialogues, logins, errors, and the customer portal. 

Examples of UI specs for developers:

Samples of digital ads and banners highlighting the creative direction:

 

Launch and Results:

The OnePrint™ pilot subscription program was launched in five countries and in several languages, offering four color toner plan level subscriptions, five black and white toner plan level subscriptions, and multiple printer purchase option plans. The program garnered significant engagement from SMB customers, gaining approximately 1000 new enrollments within its first year. It’s worth noting that OnePrint™ subscription adoption was greatly hindered by several factors, including lack of available product/supply chain and delayed functionality of promotional capabilities, which put us at disadvantage to our competitors. In hindsight, the team (I include myself on this) should have worked up some worst-case scenario plans and messaging for these delays. Some of these supply issues could not have been avoided and were a product of the supply chain still recovering from the issues arising from the pandemic.

The Outcome:

The success of the OnePrint™ SaaS pilot program validated its appeal and effectiveness in meeting the needs of SMB owners. The program’s positive reception led to notable recognition, with features in prestigious publications such as Entrepreneur magazine (October 2023) and Forbes website, providing further visibility and credibility to the OnePrint™ offering. 

 

Key Learnings and Takeaways:

Lexmark’s OnePrint™ SaaS pilot program exemplifies the company’s commitment to innovation and customer-centric solutions. By leveraging digital user experience strategies and agile methodologies, the program successfully penetrated the SMB market segment, demonstrating the potential for sustainable growth and profitability in the subscription-based service model. All-in-all, our business objectives were successful and the company was able to achieve its pilot goals. Unfortunately, the company has also undergone some business strategy changes and has decided to not invest more into the SMB market but to focus primarily on the Enterprise/ large business segments. As of now, OnePrint™ is in maintenance mode only.

However, this case study showcases Lexmark’s strategic approach to diversifying its business offerings and underscores the importance of user-centric design in driving product success in today’s digital landscape.