Building a calculator that saves its
users thousands of hours

Building a calculator that saves its users thousands of hours

Remote — 2022

Remote — 2022

Remote — 2022

My role

Senior Product Designer

Industry

HR

Duration

4 months

Duration

4 months

Problem

Imagine you're a company looking to hire in an unfamiliar country. You need to figure out all the costs involved in payroll, benefits, and taxes. What if you could instantly calculate these yourself, without lengthy email exchanges with a sales team?

Outcome

As the Senior Product Designer leading this project, I worked with a cross-functional team to develop an in-platform solution, allowing Remote's customers to calculate costs independently, which reduced the sales team's workload by nearly 14,000 hours annually.

Background

Remote is a company that simplifies other businesses' processes to build teams globally by managing global payroll, benefits, compliance, and taxes on their behalf. Previously, whenever a customer or potential customer wanted a quote for hiring a new employee through Remote’s Employer of Record (EOR) service, they had to email the request and wait for a salesperson to estimate the costs, which was made with the use of a spreadsheet. If the customer needed to adjust the benefits package, salary, or hiring location, they had to engage in lengthy email exchanges, making the sales process highly time-consuming.

This project was kickstarted by the sales leadership team, due to their concerns about the amount of time the sales team was spending on email exchanges.

Understanding

This project lasted for about four months, and we started with a workshop following the research phase to determine the core problems and the MVP.

To fully understand the problem, I began by conducting user interviews with both Remote's salespeople and customers who had requested calculations at any point. I aimed to uncover the steps before the calculation, why they reached out to Remote, and what happened after they received the estimations.

“...sometimes I use our competitors' calculators to make sure the spreadsheet is giving me the right numbers.”

Remote's sales representative

The research helped me to visualize the flow between customers wanting to hire abroad and Remote's salespeople. It also highlighted the significant time sales reps wasted and their lack of trust in the company's own internal tools.

Problem definition

1

Time spent on calculations

Remote's sales team spent an average of 1400 hours monthly on manual calculations for customers, which made them highly prone to errors.

2

Inneficient budget planning

Without having their hiring budget estimates, customers were struggling to plan effectively, wasting time for both the company and the candidates.

3

Lack of autonomy

Customers relied on the sales team for calculations, causing delays and limiting their ability to move quickly and take informed decisions independently.

Our goals

Our goals

Our goals

Automate the calculations

Help customers run calculations on their own for mandatory contributions when hiring internationally.

Shift the customers behaviour

If we could nudge customers into starting the calculations with a well-defined hiring budget, we could make their process more efficient.

Success criteria

FOR CUSTOMERS

Increase the monthly creation of calculations from 0 to 3.500

FOR SALES REPRESENTATIVES

Decrease the time spent on calculations from 1.366 to 200 hours

Bringing clarity to product decisions

Having definition on the problems we were solving, our goals and how we'd measure success, I started creating wireframes, which I quickly presented to users for feedback.

I've also used wireframes as a communication tool, bringing clarity and tangibility to the product decisions. Here's where assumptions were validated and product strategy was discussed in the early stages of the project.

The scope for the MVP was determined through sessions with the product manager, engineering lead, and stakeholders. Once completed, we tested it, and the feedback was very positive. Customers greatly appreciated the idea of having a calculator available anytime, anywhere, without any waiting time.

Prototyping &
designs

Prototyping & designs

Prototyping & designs

After testing wireframes with users, it was time for me to jump on high fidelity designs, which were built using Remote's design system with some components being created from scratch.

By giving Remote 3 pieces of information and one click, customers were presented with a detailed calculation of what are all the mandatory costs they’d have to hire an employee in a given country. What before took 3 days to be created, could now be generated by any customer, any time.

The calculation

After entering the requested information, users would receive a comprehensive calculation displaying all the costs involved in hiring an employee in the selected country. Additionally, users could compare costs across multiple countries.


A key challenge on this screen was presenting a large amount of information in an easily digestible way. To address this, I relied on progressive disclosure, allowing users to control which information they wanted to view.

After entering the requested information, users would receive a comprehensive calculation displaying all the costs involved in hiring an employee in the selected country. Additionally, users could compare costs across multiple countries.


A key challenge on this screen was presenting a large amount of information in an easily digestible way. To address this, I relied on progressive disclosure, allowing users to control which information they wanted to view.

Changing a
behavior

Changing a behavior

Changing a behavior

One of our goals was to shift our customers’ behavior so that they begin the calculation with their hiring budget in mind, rather than just the desired salary. This approach helps them determine exactly how much they can afford to pay a candidate based on their available budget.

To do that, we added two options in the first step of the calculation, allowing them to start from the salary or from their available budget.

Measuring
our success

Measuring our success

Measuring our success

After the first month of implementing the calculator, which remains accessible to all Remote customers via their dashboard, we could already confirm the success of our solution.

The numbers speak for themselves.

18.700

Number of calculations created in 3 months by customers - an average of 6.200 per month

97% less

Time spent creating calculations by the sales team — from 1400 to 41 hours per month

17% more

Qualified leads generated from Remote’s website by using the public version of the calculator

Reflecting on
the outcomes

Reflecting on the outcomes

Reflecting on the outcomes

1

Outcomes over outputs

Reflecting on this project, I feel a deep sense of pride, particularly because we excelled in our exploration and focused on changing user behavior. By doing so, we increased the number of customers conducting calculations independently, which in turn boosted conversions on the platform.

2

Learn how to speak another language

Without understanding the business, as a UX designer I wouldn't be able to identify impactful opportunities or create new ones. I had to learn how the organization makes and spends money and what it values; otherwise, UX goals and metrics would seem irrelevant to business priorities.

3

Communication & Collaboration

Working in an async environment isn't always easy. So I made efforts to connect with my team on a daily basis and be vocal about my work to ensure everyone was aware and onboard with the work I was proposing.

4

We did that!

I’m really proud of our ability to get to the finish line (although this project has evolved since!). It became an important tool for Remote and it saves literally thousands of hours for customers, Remoters and indirectly, also provides candidates a better experience.

"Thank you so much for your contribution to the Cost Calculator, Carla. We’ve generated 75k+ calculations with your design work and it has literally saved Remoters and customers thousands of hours!"

"Thank you so much for your contribution to the Cost Calculator, Carla. We’ve generated 75k+ calculations with your design work and it has literally saved Remoters and customers thousands of hours!"

Steve Lucas

Steve Lucas

Group Product Manager | Remote

Group Product Manager | Remote

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!

Shall we grab a coffee?

Let’s talk projects, collaborations, or anything design!