Removing Process Waste with Jobs-to-be-Done
At Cox Automotive, our Incentive Authors are the behind-the-scenes heroes who gather, analyze, and load critical vehicle incentive data into Cox’s Incentive Platform. This powerhouse fuels dealer tools that calculate payments, trade-ins, rebates, and interest rates—helping dealers close deals faster and shoppers score big savings.
Speed Matters! When automakers drop new incentives, our team races against the clock (tight SLAs!) to make them live. However; over the years the process has been neglected and plagued with inefficiencies.
How do we identify, measure, and demonstrate the most critical and worth investment opportunities?
Core Team:
> Product Director
> Readiness Manager
> UX Architect
Process Overview:
> User Research
> Mapped the JTBD
> Identified the Needs
> Prioritized Highest Value Needs
Project Goal
Identity the inefficiencies that delay, create errors, and uncertainty in the Incentive Author workflow.
My Role
As the lead UX Architect, I was responsible for planning, executing, and leading the team use the Jobs-to-be-Done framework.
Results
The organization prioritized investment in eliminating 55% of inefficiencies in incentive authoring.
The Research Strategy
I created a JTBD-based research plan to understand user needs, identify improvements, and most importantly set expectations. After aligning with my product team and readiness manager on timelines and goals, I presented it to the Incentive Authoring team and leadership during kick-off. (See Image A)
The Incentive Author and their JTBD
Interactive interviews ensured an archetypal understanding of the Incentive Author role and a Job Map (See Image B), the step-by-step representation of the JTBD:
Providing incentive data to Cox Automotive dealer products.
Expressed Pain Points
Change Day
The race against the clock to update all incentives. It starts in early morning and lasts up to 24 hours.
Limited Help
The entire incentive group is occupied with their entries during Change Day, there is limited assistance provided.
Manual Effort
OEM incentives are not consistent, limiting the ability to automate processes.
Refining the Job Map & Needs
I combined all job maps from interviews and in the second round, validated steps and flagged misalignment. The exercise ensured accurate capturing of the job steps. Behind the scenes, there was much back-and-forth to ensure a good-enough but accurate JTBD representation in the Job Map (See Image C).
Job Steps
In the world of Jobs-to-be-Done, job steps are written in “Verb + Object + Contextual Clarifier” format. This ensures each step describes, with a verb, how the job executor is moving forward in the process in a clear manner until the job is concluded.
The Complete Job Map
Our JTBD research had uncovered 49 measurable desired outcomes (inefficiencies in the process). Each plays a role in an Incentive Author’s JTBD: Providing incentive data to Cox Automotive dealer products. How do we align 49 directions?
User Needs => Desired Outcomes
Desired Outcomes are measurable needs that, when addressed, avoid errors, wasted time, or unpredictability results in the JTBD. Removing inefficiencies in the process improves the process, that is the JTBD philosophy.
User Need:
I need to enter incentive data accurately.
Desired Outcome:
Minimize the likelihood that erroneous incentive data is stored.
With this conversion, we can measure the number of errors in the data much easier than “accuracy”.
Importance vs Satisfaction
Participants are given a survey that uses a likert 1-5 scale to measure the importance and satisfaction of each desired outcome. Resulting measurable feedback that we can objectively prioritize and visually represent in the Opportunity Map.
Results
Our Job-to-be-Done approach, visualized the Incentive Author process, demonstrating specific and measurable inefficiencies that directed further investment in helping dealers close deals faster and shoppers score big savings with incentives.
The survey measured 49 desired outcomes. 27 out of 49 underserved. Meaning parts of the JTBD that are of high importance but low satisfaction to the Incentive Author.
What didn't work?
1st Survey Attempt Failed
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The first survey attempt failed. Participants expressed difficulty understanding the questions. I added context to each question and terminology definitions.
Coordinating Interviews
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I partnered with the Readiness Manager to schedule research participation e.g. interviews and surveys, around Change Day.
Key Takeaways
Goals vs Tasks
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Mapping "Retrieve incentive data from storage" (JTBD) revealed more pain points than just asking, "How do you enter incentives?". Always frame research around user goals, not just tasks.
Measurable Impact
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The I/S survey turned anecdotes into measurable insights. Critical to understanding how much to invest in process improvement.
Co-Creating with Users
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Incentive Authors helped group job steps into themes, revealing overlooked workflows (e.g., "side jobs" in purple on the Job Map). Use workshops, not just interviews, to achieved shared understanding.
