My Framer Site

Smarter Retailer Onboarding for Signature Outlet Expansion

Transforming a manual, paper-based onboarding process into a streamlined digital experience.

👩🏻‍💻 My Team

Lead (1) – Strategic guidance

UX Designer (Me) – Collaborated closely with PMs to shape the redesign and with engineers

to ensure feasibility and smooth

execution.

PMs (1) – Defined system gaps, and the overall framework for the process.

📌 About

A digital onboarding platform designed to simplify the Signature Outlet registration process, enabling retailers to apply easily and admins to manage approvals efficiently — reducing manual effort and improving overall transparency.

⌛ Duration

2 Weeks of Research & Design

Background

Signature Outlets are selected retail stores that showcase RCPL products with prominent in-store branding such as banners, displays, and product highlights.

Onboarding Process - Retailers can become Signature Outlets through a dedicated onboarding process designed to enhance product visibility and elevate the in-store experience.

Why
After the launch of Campa Cola, there was a significant surge in demand from retailers for branding and promotional materials. Simultaneously, the business sought to strengthen product visibility, while consumers showed strong emotional engagement fueled by the brand’s nostalgic appeal.

Features

Retailer Empowerment: Retailers can easily apply for Signature Outlet status through a simple online form—no FOS intervention required.

Incentives & Support: Approved retailers receive exclusive incentives and branding materials to boost product visibility and enhance store appeal.
Seamless Administration: Admins can conveniently review, approve, or reject applications, ensuring efficiency and transparency in the selection process.

Current Challenges

The existing onboarding ecosystem for Signature Retailers operated through a highly manual and fragmented process, relying on physical booklets and paper-based forms. This required Field Officers (FOS) to collect data manually and the admin team to later digitize and verify it — leading to significant operational inefficiencies.

Business Gaps
Lack of a unified system led to delays, data duplication, and limited visibility into application status, impacting rollout efficiency.

Design Gaps
No digital touchpoint for retailers to self-apply, inconsistent data formats, and poor transparency in the approval workflow.

20-30

Delayed Onboarding

Average onboarding time stretched to 20–30 days per retailer, slowing down overall campaign execution and delaying market activation.

Data Inaccuracy & Rework

Nearly 40% of applications contained incomplete or incorrect details, leading to repeated manual verification and follow-ups between teams.

Reduced FOS Productivity

FOS productivity dropped by almost 30%, as significant time was spent on collecting forms and entering data instead of focusing on business development.

🎯 Objective

Design a digital onboarding platform for Signature Outlets that minimizes manual effort, improves data accuracy, and empowers Admins, FOS, and Retailers with real-time visibility and control.

Onboarding Process

The current manual onboarding involves FOS pitching the program, collecting store details on paper, and submitting

forms to Admins, who verify via Excel and upload selected entries — a 20–30 day process prone to delays, errors, and

no real-time tracking.

Physical booklet that was used by FOS to collect retailer information

manually during the onboarding process.

FOS
Name
Nishant Sharma
Role
Feet on Street Officer
Age
29
Location
Multiple routes across city
Tech Comfort
High (mobile savvy)
Goals
Convert more retailers to Signature Outlets
Minimize time per visit
Track retailer status without multiple follow-ups
Pain Point
Carries booklets that can get lost/damaged
Has to manually explain and fill lengthy forms for retailers
Has no visibility on application status post-submission
Needs
Easy mobile-based data collection
Status updates and notifications
Digital assistance to explain benefits and process to retailers
Retailer
Name
Ramesh Patel
Role
Kirana store owner
Age
42
Location
Tier 2 city
Tech Comfort
Low to moderate
Goals
Increase footfall and sales via better brand visibility
Quickly join programs that benefit the store
Avoid long or unclear paperwork
Pain Point
Confused about Signature Outlet benefits
Repeated form-filling for different brand programs
Frustrated by delays in confirmation or feedback
Needs
Simple, guided onboarding experience
Visual clarity on what will be installed in-store (e.g., hoardings, fridges)
Quick confirmation and communication on next steps
Admin
Name
Arvind Mehta
Role
Sales Ops Manager
Age
36
Location
Regional HQ
Tech Comfort
Excel & Dashboards
Goals
Ensure only qualified retailers are onboarded
Maintain clean, verifiable data
Reduce turnaround time and manual effort
Pain Point
Excel-based form verification is error-prone and time-consuming
No real-time view of form progress or bottlenecks
Approvals/edits require switching tools or multiple emails
Needs
Simple, guided onboarding experience
Visual clarity on what will be installed in-store (e.g., hoardings, fridges)
Quick confirmation and communication on next steps

Solution Approach

We developed a digital onboarding solution for both FOS and retailers, with a comprehensive admin panel:

Digital form: All required information captured uniformly.

Instant submission: Data instantly synced to admin dashboard.

Automated validation: Reduces manual errors and flags incomplete information.

Admin workflow: Approvals and modifications managed in a single web panel.

Admin Panel

A central view of all pending merchant profiles for review, with the ability to approve, reject, or edit details. 

Ability to modify incorrect or incomplete merchant details before approving them, without needing to revert to the CSO or merchant. 

A scalable solution that can handle growing numbers of merchant onboardings, while reducing manual intervention and error correction.

Maintain consistency with existing DMS panel features while smoothly incorporating Signature Outlet data.

Onboarding Android App

Enable both self-serve and assisted onboarding for merchants with easy mobile number authentication.

Capture all necessary commercial details accurately for onboarding and approval by merchants and CSOs.

Ensure synchronization between the FOS app and DMS onboarding system for seamless data flow.

New Onboarding Process

The new process lets Retailers or FOS complete a guided digital form with all details and photos, instantly syncing to the Admin Panel. Admins can review and act in real time, enabling faster approvals, live status updates, and centralized records.