Creating a Next Generation Digital Experience for Global Air Freight
Project Background: Global air freight is a crucial part of international trade, enabling businesses to move goods quickly and efficiently over long distances, particularly for time-sensitive goods, high-value items, and perishable products. Currently, the air freight market is dominated by freight forwarders known for their expertise and large networks but mired in manual processes, disjointed technology and very little transparency for shippers. In the past, FedEx has catered mostly towards priority and economy freight, which comprise a very small piece of the $269 billion global air freight market, but in a market ripe for disruption FedEx is actively working to change that.
Problem: How might we design a differentiated Global Air Freight digital end-to-end experience for small and medium-sized international shippers that makes it easy to create and manage shipments?
Process: Customer research enabled deep immersion of needs and expectations for designing the digital GAF experience. Working with an outside vendor and cross-functional team, participated in an in-person workshop to identify the current process and review past research. To better understand how current shippers use global air freight services, the team conducted a detailed pulse survey and 16 in-depth interviews. This information was used to create a detailed journey map, complete with pain points and service gaps, as well as high-level concepts that were reviewed by users to determine the ideal design solution.
Design Solution: Customer research validated our journey and revealed that shippers are ready to digitize their air freight experience. Our experience focused on four key areas: getting a quote, booking a shipment, tracking shipments and resolving problems while in transit, and reviewing invoices and payment. Designs were validated by over 300 participants across five countries, resulting in a high-fidelity clickable prototype and video to obtain leadership buy-in.
