In this next edition of our Behind The Scenes series, let’s meet our Senior Product Manager Cris! She leads several key product initiatives here at Parcel Perform, including our recently released Premium Branded Tracking Page!

In this interview, Cris tells us about herself, what she does on a usual day and how developing the Premium Branded Tracking Page together with the team was like.

Tell us more about you, who is Cris?

Cris: I’m a 27-year-old Dutchie, who moved to Singapore two years ago. I like to play outdoor sports, like field hockey and cycling. Next to that, I enjoy the variety of cuisines in Singapore. In a pre-COVID life I also like to travel across Southeast Asia. 

What is your role in Parcel Perform? Tell us about your daily routine. 

Cris: I’m a Senior Product Manager in Parcel Perform and I lead several customer-facing products like the Premium Branded Tracking Page and Customer Service Toolkit modules. My day starts with the stand-up with the whole Singapore team where we share what we are planning to do that day. My day usually comprises reviewing and accepting recent work delivered by our development team. Besides that, I might need to look into some specific customer requests handed over to me by our Key Account Managers. In between these needs, I meet regularly with the full product team, our designer and prepare technical requirements for upcoming features. 

How did you get started in product management? 

Cris: One of my previous roles focused on website Search Engine Optimization (SEO), including link building and writing content to ensure users could easily find the websites via search engines. One of the website domains I was working on was ranking very well and we monetised the website. I became the dedicated owner to see this initiative through giving me first-hand exposure to the work of a product manager. I found that I preferred the work of a product manager over the marketing role as I had a more direct impact on the user experience. 

You are the lead product manager behind our Premium Branded Tracking Page; seeing the entire product through from conceptualisation to launch. What was your favourite part of the entire process? 

Cris: My favourite part of the entire process was the launch of the product. After months of hard work from the entire team, seeing the product live at our customer’s websites felt amazing for myself and the rest of the team involved..  

The development of the Premium Tracking Page started months ago with some initial brainstorm sessions with our development team. We created some initial mockups and trialed them with our customers to get their feedback. We knew we were onto something when our customers were enthusiastic about our first version and with that feedback; we started working on the requirements. 

We took a phased approach with this product; initially deploying it to selected customers and we now have even more deployments scheduled with new feature enhancements in the pipeline. One of my favourite things that I’m proud of with our new tracking page is that an update to the widget doesn’t require an update in the implementation from our customers. We automatically make sure that each customer has access to the newest, most updated version. 

What are the key differences between the Premium Tracking Page and the previous versions of our Tracking Experience? 

Cris: Let’s start with what remains unchanged. Both versions of our Tracking Page support over 30+ languages and you can also align the tracking experience’s design with your brand’s look and feel.

In this new, updated version, we’ve introduced lots of configurable elements and widened the options to customers to configure how their tracking widget will look like. Customers can now fully customize the widget - beyond how it looks and feels into customizing the functionalities of the widget to suit their business needs. For example, customers can configure the display of the estimated delivery date, time-zone configuration and the ability to place additional marketing or upsell content directly in the widget.

Another main difference and possibly the one that makes the most significant difference to our customers: the Premium Tracking Page can be implemented as a widget on the customer’s own website allowing them to receive delivery updates directly in their online store, compared to the basic tracking experience that is on a separate URL.

What was the main motivation behind the creation of the Premium Tracking Page? 

Cris: With more customers shopping online, we believe that delivering an exceptional customer experience is more and more important for e-commerce brands and marketplaces. By no longer sending customers away from merchant’s websites (for example to the carrier’s parcel tracking websites) and having full control and flexibility over the delivery updates displayed, merchants will improve the customer journey of their customers. 

Therefore, we realised that it’s important to not only have a dedicated page for all relevant tracking information, but to also have this information on the merchant’s website itself. This thought motivated us to create a very flexible widget that can easily be implemented on each page while evolving over time to meet a retailer’s changing needs.

How would you describe the Premium Tracking Page in a single sentence? 

Cris: A customisable widget to provide your customers all order tracking information and give them a perfect post-purchase experience.

Find out more about the Premium Tracking Page here. 

Want to check out who else is working with us? Read more about other team members at Parcel Perform on our blog, or go on to our LinkedIn page and get a glimpse of the people who make up our team.