Lead Product Designer – Lowe's Core UX Team

Featured case study

Led UX-First Strategy to Transform How Lowe's Employees Manage Over 1 Million Annual Floor Service Sales Quotes for B2C Customers

Modernized Lowe's end-to-end flooring installation sales customer experience.

Additional case studies

Conducted Customer Research and Built a B2B Pro Contractor Buyers Journey Map

Unlocked actionable insights and strategic investment themes of the Pro customer segment.

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Streamlining Lowe's B2B E-Procurement: From Hour to Ten Minutes Product Selection

Reduced time to purchase SKUs from two hours to under ten minutes.

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Created a Voice of Customer Program For the Pro Product Portfolio To Align Eight Product Teams

Identify and select opportunities that will define the target state of the Pro customer experience.

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Rapid Discovery On Pinterest Like Inspiration Experience For Lowe's DIY Customers

Conducted rapid discovery of a Pinterest-type inspiration space for DIY customers to gather their images and interests.

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Unblocked a Salesforce CRM Integration

Improved sales insights and sales tasks at the Pro desk.

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Professional Highlights

• I was promoted from Senior Product Designer to Lead Product Designer by going above and beyond Lowe's Digital Leadership Principles. 
• I led design and product work for the B2B2C Pro product portfolio (eight products). 
• I scaled a product design team from 1 to 16 designers and managed its design operations and projects. 
• I developed and led the voice of the customer (VoC) program for the Pro product portfolio. 
• I led the design work for an executive-sponsored design initiative that modernized Lowe's US$250M flooring installation segment’s sales process, impacting over a million sales quotes annually. 
• I developed the B2B Pro contractor sales journey map, foundational to the VoC program. 

Lowe's Business Facts

Lowe's omnichannel sales challenge

Marvin Ellison, the new CEO of Lowe's at that time, initiated a company-wide digital transformation in 2018. To prove he meant business, he hired Seemantini Godbole from Target and put her in charge as CIO of Lowe’s technology organization. He also injected an additional US$500M a year into the technology organization to modernize its legacy orders, inventory tech stack, and other backend processes. 

During 2018 and 2019, Lowe's hired many people from tech giants like Amazon and Oracle to help speed up the company’s digital transformation. In 2019, they hired me to help streamline the Pro customer shopping experience and modernize their legacy tech stack’s user experience. 

Central to the digital transformation was the concept that Lowe's was changing how they sold their products to customers. For decades, Lowe's was a retailer primarily focused on selling products via their 1800 stores in North America. They saw the success of retailers such as Home Depot and Target and realized they could sell their products online and increase their sales revenue by becoming an omnichannel retailer. 

But Lowe's work was cut out for them because creating an omnichannel customer experience is nothing like selling in a store environment. To compete with other omnichannel retailers they had to: 

• Hire customer-centric people who knew how to build future-state experiences in an omnichannel ecosystem. 
• Transition away from a store and product-led growth strategy and focus on a customer-led omnichannel strategy. 
• Design a technology organization around customer segments and their shopping habits. 
• Transition away from a store-dominant sales experience. 
• Improve their backend tech stack to ensure their inventory was accurately presented across all sales channels. 

My role

I was the Lowe's Core UX (CUX) design team’s first hire in September 2019. The CUX team comprised the UX manager and me as a senior product designer. In H2 of 2020, I was promoted to lead product designer. The team eventually grew to 16 members, overseeing research, design, and content strategy. It was part of the technology organization supporting the Pro Sales business team. 

I oversaw the design work for the following products and areas: 

• Lowe's Pro Supply Website (Link) 
• Lowe's MVP Pro Rewards Program Website (link) 
• eProcurement Products (Link) 
• Quote Support Program (QSP) Products (Link) 
• Installation Services Products (Link) 
• Inside and Outside Sales & CRM Products 

I worked in a complex matrixed organization.

I worked with 15 product managers in the store's technology organization and coordinated the design work in their product roadmaps across three customer segments. 

I mainly worked with the Pro Sales business team, which managed the following Pro groups: 

• Pro Online 
• Loyalty Experience 
• MVP Pro Rewards 
• Business Tools 
• eProcurement 

Lowe's Core UX Product Design team

I worked with some fantastic people on the Lowe's Core UX team. Most of us were there because we had occasionally shopped at Lowe's while working on our own house projects. The team wanted to make the shopping experience the best in class and improve the user experience associated with the daily business tools our Lowe's associates used. 

How did I grow for my next senior role?

• I learned to lead in a matrixed, cross-functional, and fast-moving environment.
• I built a VoC program that helped me identify opportunities to enhance the user experiences of customers and employees across three customer segments. 
• Designed and led end-to-end design projects, cementing my experience and know-how to tackle enterprise-scale projects.

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Please contact me if you want to discuss any of my case studies and see an opportunity to work together.