There’s no better feeling than delivering a sparkling new website for your clients that doesn’t just check all the boxes, but far exceeds what they ever imagined for their business. To get there, you need tools that make you more efficient, creative and collaborative.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the Wix Studio workspace, a new end-to-end solution packed with features for agencies and freelancers to manage their projects and teams. (You can read about more Wix Studio's features here.)
We believe there’s nothing like it on the market, so we spoke to product manager Ronli Shacham and UX designer Adi Schur for a peek into the team’s vision and process. Ahead, they’ll share exactly how they built the new workspace, plus how your agency can use it for streamlined project management and exceptional work, deadlines be damned. (Related: Wix Studio's AI capabilities will change the way you work)
First, we learned everything we could about how Partners used our previous dashboard.
Ronli Shacham: Though we’ve been in constant dialogue with our Partners, we knew we’d have to undergo additional user research when dialing in on freelancers and agencies. Through hundreds of Zoom calls and in-person meetings, we concluded our previous product wasn’t meeting every need and that there was an opportunity to do something special.
It became clear that our new efforts couldn’t include only a new editor. In order to provide professionals with an end-to-end solution, we also had to provide them with everything related to managing their projects, clients, teams and growth. We had to help them be successful in virtually every aspect of their business. That’s how the concept of the workspace was born.
Adi Schur: Every person on the product and UX teams, at every level, devoted time to chatting with Partners so we could learn about their businesses, their pain points within the Wix platform, and their dreams and desires for their agency. Specifically, we learned that Partners:
Manage many sites at a time
Spend hours a day building websites for their clients
Look for ways to be more efficient with their time in order to meet strict deadlines
Know the platform very well
Need to find solutions quickly to keep their clients’ businesses running
Outsource and collaborate with other Partners and team members in their agency
We did a ton of competitive research, too.
Shacham: We also conducted an extensive competitor analysis where we learned about the industry standard and got inspiration from professional platforms in other industries. Based on this work, we knew we wanted to offer:
Educational resources in both the workspace and the editor
A strong Partner community
Re-usable (and sellable) assets like custom templates and apps
One place to view all product updates and upcoming features
A seamless client handover experience
Schur: Since we've built such a strong rapport with Partners, we really came to understand their biggest pain points. For example, competitors don't necessarily have things like client kits and handovers, so we thought, ok, this is a great opportunity. There isn't any competitor that we thought had everything, so we feel our solution is the most robust.
Then, we started creating.
Schur: To truly honor the rich conversations we’ve had with our Partners, we returned to their pain points in everything we did: efficiency, team collaboration and fostering strong client relationships. We collaborated with many teams in Wix to give the full solution.
We’ve simplified multi-site management to help our Partners be more efficient. We added functionality such as new filters and the ability to create custom views to make navigating between client sites effortless.
We've also enhanced the premium plans management page to easily view many plans and get highlights of the most important information, like soon-to-expire plans and payment problems.
And we created the Customer Care Tickets page where Partners can view and manage all the tickets opened by their team in one place, easily find past resolutions and open new support tickets with Wix.
They can also create and manage reusable assets as custom templates and apps that’ll help them work at scale and save them and their team valuable time. It also offers a monetization opportunity: Partners can submit their apps to the Wix App Market and start selling them. In the future, we plan to add the ability to share and sell custom templates.
Plus, with Wix Studio, Partners can be a part of multiple workspaces from a single Wix account (one email address). For example, if they’re a freelancer working with multiple agencies regularly, or they’re a founder with several businesses, then they can switch between workspaces as needed. This eliminates the complexities of managing multiple accounts.
Shacham: In our research process, we discovered that when handing a project over to the client, Partners would normally send them a screen recording or tutorial to show them how to manage and customize their site. Typically, they would send this via email, and the client would sometimes lose it in their inbox. That’s why we created the Client Kit, which allows Partners to upload their screen recordings—or any other resource they've created for the client—when they hand the site over to their client. They can also select from the Wix Studio tutorials collection. It makes explaining to clients how to use or update their websites hassle-free.
Another cool tool we’ve added is the Client Report, which allows Partners to share key insights with their clients by sending them monthly analytics reports for their premium sites;
they just set it up once, and it will be sent automatically every month with updated stats.
And since we know how important it is for Partners to be in the know and up to date with everything that is new in the platform, we've created the News Center, where they can learn about all the new releases and new beta features. We've also included educational tools and resources (like sandboxes and inspiring examples of Studio sites) in the discover page and as part of the resources menu in the header.
Don’t worry, we kept the features Partners loved.
Schur: The workspace has the same core features that our Partners had before but with much more functionality and better UX & data hierarchy. The main features they had in the Partner dashboard moved to the new workspace including all sites, team member management, Partner program points and benefits including Rev Share and Marketplace, CRM and billing tools.
We’re super proud of the final product.
Shacham: We’re most excited about putting Wix Partners front and center by answering everything they’ve been asking for. It’s a company-wide effort to give them the best platform, tools and experience to create robust and beautiful websites for their clients.
When you think about it, Wix Studio is the first end-to-end solution we created for Partners' needs in particular. Up until today, Partners used either the Wix Editor, which was aimed for the DIY users, or Editor X, which was more complex to learn and use. Professionals used them both, but neither were tailored specifically to their needs. Also, the previous Partner dashboard was lacking capabilities to manage projects at scale, and didn't offer enough efficiency and client handover tools. So, this is the first time we built a concept specifically to address this audience’s needs.
But the process is on-going.
Shacham: We’ve gotten some really great feedback about the new workspace—that it feels much more professional and easy to use—and the customer-care tickets blew our Partners’ minds. They’re thrilled with the client handover tools, and have some great ideas on how we can continue to improve and extend their abilities. They were also really excited about being able to sell apps, and in the future, templates.
All of this is really just the tip of the iceberg. For full transparency in our strategic vision, check out our roadmap, which holds plans to create additional revenue streams for partners and more tools to grow their business. In the meantime, if there’s any additional feedback you’d like to share with us, please don’t hesitate to contribute to this Partners feedback forum. Stay tuned for more.
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