GoTo Automotive

GoTo Automotive

An omnichannel communication app helping car dealerships provide a new best in class customer experience

Context

GoTo is a remote-first B2B providing business communication software to businesses across 4 continents: AMER, EMEA, LATAM & APAC. Their product suite spans omnichannel communication (softphone, contact center) and IT management (ticket system, remote support).

Products are built within a Trio Framework — UX researchers are deeply embedded across multiple trios simultaneously alongside Product, Design, and Engineering. As senior UX researcher, I covered all trios: Contact Center and Inbox.

The Challenge

GoTo set out to launch its first vertical product targeting car dealerships — a market with distinct workflows, compliance requirements, and communication patterns unlike any existing GoTo customer.

No Industry Knowledge

Little understanding of how car dealerships operate, who the users are, and what they need from a communication tool.

Unvalidated Product–Market Fit

Only a few signals that GoTo's existing product would meet the specific needs of automotive dealership workflows.

6 Months to Launch

A compressed timeline requiring fast, high-confidence research decisions to hit a non-negotiable ship date.

Research Mission

To lead the research efforts for the success of the launch.

  1. 1Identify key personas and workflows
  2. 2Identify gaps & opportunities
  3. 3Test future designs, concepts & prototypes

Research Strategy

A systematic approach to building knowledge from scratch.

  1. 1Field Study — Organized & conducted on-site visits in car dealerships to identify key personas and workflows
  2. 2Recruitment Pipeline — Built an automotive user panel for future research rounds
  3. 3User Journey Mapping — Mapped current-state & vision journeys across personas
  4. 4Persona + JTBD — Identified targeted personas with jobs to be done
  5. 5Continuous Research — Implemented an ongoing research stream with users
  6. 6Concept & Design Tests — Tested new concepts and designs leveraging the recruitment pipeline

Key Personas

5 personas identified who would benefit the most from GoTo. Enhancing their current experience was critical for adoption and sales.

  • Business Development Manager / IT Admin
  • Sales Manager
  • Sales Representatives
  • Service Managers
  • Service Representatives
GoTo Automotive personas

Journey Map

Problem

Creating one journey map per persona did not reflect the end-to-end workflows GoTo was supporting.

Solution

During a workshop with UX designers and PMs, we mapped the car dealership end customers to track how information was transmitted from one role to another within a singular journey map.

End-to-end journey map

Key Initiatives

Co-defined with designers, PMs, and engineers based on research findings.

01

Data Retention

Increase to 7 years to match dealership legal requirements

02

Report Templates

Managers do not want to build dashboards, but to use them to improve their team's performance

03

DMS & CRM Integrations

Dealership employees live in their CRM/DMS; integration is critical to unlock powerful automations

04

Enhance Image & Video Quality

Sales representatives rely on sending high quality videos and images to close deals

GoTo Automotive solution designs

Testing & Iteration

Multiple rounds of concept and usability testing per initiative.

  1. 1Usability Testing — Identify friction in hi-fi designs per initiative
  2. 2Iterate — Refine with designers based on findings
  3. 3Re-test — Confirm improvements before handoff

Business Outcome

Target revenue met 3 months ahead of schedule.

Research-driven decisions that informed and de-risked the product launch.

My Deliverables

Tangible research artifacts that created lasting value beyond the launch.

  1. 1Personas — Detailed profiles for key dealership roles with goals, workflows, and GoTo usage patterns
  2. 2User Journey Maps + JTBD — Current-state journey maps with jobs-to-be-done for each persona
  3. 3Customer Pipeline — Panel of 80 automotive customers available for continuous research and interviews
  4. 4Marketing Case Studies — Customers providing real-world success stories for go-to-market and sales enablement
  5. 5Knowledge Base — Car dealership research repository accessible across the company