Consumer home maintenance app
HomePilot by Lessen
Lessen (previously SMS Assist) is a facilities maintenance company in downtown Chicago, and in 2024 they wanted to bring the business direct to consumer.
In just under four months, I spearheaded the end-to-end design process as the sole designer, transforming an initial concept into a fully launched app. This launch positioned Lessen as a contender in the competitive consumer home maintenance industry, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with established platforms like Angi, TaskRabbit, and Thumbtack.
Project Overview
App Name
HomePilot by Lessen
Timeline
May 2024 - September 2024
Platform
iOS & Android App
My Role
As the sole designer and product strategy lead, I took full ownership of the app from concept to launch. My role spanned every stage of development, including conducting competitive research, defining a comprehensive feature roadmap, and driving stakeholder alignment to adapt the business for consumer needs. I led the design process end-to-end, from conceptualizing and iterating on solutions to validating and finalizing screens for development. Finally, I ensured a seamless execution by conducting thorough QA to uphold design specifications in the final product.
The Problem Space
Lessen had established itself as a leading enterprise solution for maintenance, but regular homeowners lacked access to our extensive vendor network and services. The challenge was to design a consumer-facing app that adhered to industry best practices while aligning with our existing business model. The app needed to empower users to request services, review and approve quotes, and track service details seamlessly. Additionally, it had to accommodate a diverse user base, ranging from individual homeowners to landlords managing multiple properties.
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Our app delivers a comprehensive yet intuitive solution, bridging the gap between our enterprise offerings and the needs of the consumer market.
Solution Impact
The app significantly expanded Lessen's reach, increasing the total accessible market by 80 million users. By adapting our enterprise solution for consumers, we unlocked new revenue opportunities and positioned Lessen as a competitive player in the home maintenance industry. The new consumer suite of products projects to bring in 15 million in revenue in 2025.
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While still in its early stages, the app's potential for driving user adoption and business growth is clear. As more volume comes in, I plan to update this section with additional metrics and insights to reflect the full impact of the solution.​
Research
Given the tight timelines for this project, I had to adapt my research approach, as methods like user interviews and testing were not feasible. Instead, I focused on extensive competitive analysis, drew inspiration from creative sources, and conducted rapid internal reviews with stakeholders. This resourceful approach allowed me to gather valuable insights and maintain momentum without compromising on quality.
Internal processes research
A key part of my research involved analyzing our existing business processes to identify elements that wouldn’t resonate with consumer users. This deep dive uncovered several impactful areas where we needed to adapt our approach to better align with consumer expectations and behaviors. Below are the most significant adjustments we made:
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Insight: Consumer users are unfamiliar with our standard "Not to Exceed" (NTE) process, favoring clear price estimates instead.
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Solution: To address this, we set the NTE to $0 for consumer users, ensuring they receive a proposal for every work order. Additionally, we developed a process to display estimates derived from historical data, providing users with the pricing transparency they expect.
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Insight: Consumer users value flexibility and control, whereas our B2B solution prioritizes a hands-off, streamlined service model. These contrasting principles required us to rethink aspects of the platform that catered to large businesses but restricted control for individual consumers.
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Solution:
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Flexibility in Scheduling: We introduced options for users to pay for expedited service or receive a discount by selecting a time most convenient for the technician.
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Personalized Technician Assignment: Consumers can now provide feedback on technicians, influencing future assignments to better match their preferences.
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Enhanced Pricing Transparency: By providing quotes for every work order and eliminating NTEs, we shifted control back to the consumer—an approach that works well for single-family homeowners but would frustrate property managers overseeing thousands of homes.
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Competitive analysis
To define the features we needed to build, we conducted extensive competitor research. This helped us pinpoint gaps in our offering relative to industry standards and uncover opportunities to exceed them.
Identifying our gaps
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Time to Complete: Our competitors prioritize speed, treating most work orders as urgent. To match their efficiency, we now prioritize all work orders with an urgent or higher classification to reduce completion times.
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Hard Scheduling: Unlike competitors, who allow users to select exact appointment times, our previous approach only accommodated general availability. To close this gap, we introduced hard scheduling, enabling users to propose specific times that technicians must accept to secure the job.
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Competitor weaknesses
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Lack of trust in technician quality: Competitors fail to reassure users about the qualifications of their technicians. Our approach highlights that every technician in our network is background-checked, thoroughly vetted, and held to high performance standards.
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Concerns about diagnostic fees: Many users feel misled by competitors, as quotes often exceed expectations after paying high diagnostic fees. To address this, we aim to provide accurate, data-driven estimates that improve over time. Additionally, starting with a low diagnostic fee will help us build trust and establish a positive reputation with users.
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Differentiating ourselves
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Recurring Services: Competitors struggle to effectively offer recurring services, such as weekly lawn or pool maintenance. Leveraging our existing processes, we can seamlessly provide this feature, setting us apart as a reliable solution for ongoing home care.
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Fix List: The Fix List is a unique feature designed to differentiate us from competitors. It allows users to gradually compile non-urgent work orders, creating a convenient to-do list for future maintenance needs—something no other platform currently offers.
Gap analysis matrix of our main competitors, our main business, and where we hop to get for consumer.
Parrallel industries
With extremely tight deadlines, I had to adopt a creative approach to research. Instead of focusing solely on competitors in the maintenance space, I drew inspiration from other industries. By breaking our maintenance process into two steps, problem diagnosis and booking, I found parallels with health diagnostic apps and food delivery platforms. This broadened my perspective and enabled me to design an innovative flow that not only met user needs but also had the potential to surpass the experiences offered by our competitors
Ada Health​
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AI-powered health diagnostic apps, which gather symptoms to identify potential illnesses, served as valuable inspiration for our AI-driven maintenance diagnostics. Similarly, we ask targeted questions to identify what’s ‘wrong’—akin to symptoms—and use our AI to analyze historical data to diagnose the maintenance issue accurately. This approach enables us to provide users with a clear and reliable understanding of their problem upfront."
DoorDash / Uber Eats / Uber ​
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Booking a technician parallels the experience of booking a delivery or rideshare service. Browsing food options is similar to exploring the range of services we offer, while scheduling a ride provides flexibility options—like priority service or 'wait and save'—that we can draw inspiration from. These familiar models help inform a seamless, user-friendly scheduling experience for our app.
Ada Health on the left, and Uber on the right, showed creative ways to get quick design inspiration.
Problem Statement
Consumer users need a seamless way to access our extensive vendor network, but our current business processes are tailored to large enterprises. To meet the unique needs of single-family homeowners, we must adapt our procedures to provide a user-friendly, flexible, and transparent experience without compromising the quality of service.
Final Prototype
With an extremely tight timeline, the final designs came together rapidly through fast iterations, quick feedback loops with stakeholders, cross-team designers, and proxy users.
Home screen
The home screen is designed to help users easily create new service requests while keeping them informed about their next scheduled service. This ensures quick access to key actions and relevant updates, streamlining the overall user experience.
Request a service
Users can effortlessly request a service by uploading a photo of the issue. Our AI analyzes the image, generates a detailed description, and recommends the appropriate service combination, simplifying the request process.
Service details
The service details page keeps users informed about their ongoing service. It provides key information, including the scheduled time and technician details. For additional support or information, users can easily access our AI assistant, Copilot, directly from this page.
Receive proposals
Users maintain full control with a proposal provided for every work order. No work is completed without their approval—an intentional shift from our traditional business model to prioritize transparency and user autonomy.
Services
Users can view a comprehensive list of all their services across multiple properties, allowing for easy management and oversight of ongoing and completed tasks.
Messaging
Stay connected with your technician through our messaging center, a first for our business. Here, users can view direct messages from their technician and track conversations with our AI assistant, Copilot.
Check it out for yourself!
HomePilot is live on both the Apple store and Google Play store, and available to all users!
Lessons Learned
Designing this app in under two months pushed me to explore new methods and work outside my comfort zone, significantly advancing my skills as a designer.
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The best inspiration often comes from industries outside your competition. To truly surpass your competitors, it’s essential to look beyond them for innovative ideas.
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It’s not enough to understand your users; you must also be able to effectively communicate their needs to stakeholders. Ultimately, you need to demonstrate the value of your proposed changes and justify why they’re worth the investment from the business side.
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Be passionate and stand firm in your beliefs. As the product designer, it’s my responsibility to relentlessly advocate for the user. To create the best product, you must know when to challenge the status quo and push for what truly serves the user.