Case Study
Dealership Management Portal, rebuilt so dealers could work on their own
The Dealership Management Portal, DMP, is where dealership Finance and Insurance teams sell and manage Safe Guard protection products. The legacy portal was so confusing that more than 90 percent of dealers called their sales rep for help with basic tasks. I was brought in after the project had stalled for five months, and I shipped the redesign in three.
The shipped DMP. The legacy portal rebuilt from inside its existing template, carrying the approved modern design concepts with it.
The Problem
A portal nobody could use, on a project going nowhere
DMP is where dealership Finance and Insurance teams sell and manage Safe Guard protection products, warranties, GAP coverage, tire and wheel protection, and dent coverage, from contract registration through claims.
Almost nobody could use it. More than 90 percent of dealers called their Safe Guard sales rep for help with basic portal tasks, so the sales team spent its days as an unpaid help desk instead of selling. The project meant to fix it had stalled: the first UX designer was fired after five months with nothing delivered, and the January 2026 executive freeze was not moving.
The legacy DMP. Capable on paper, and so hard to use that dealers picked up the phone instead.
Usability
F&I staff could not get through core tasks like registering a contract without someone walking them through it. Navigation hid the work dealers came to do.
Functionality
Contract status was hard to follow and everyday workflows were slow, so a phone call to a sales rep was simply faster than using the portal.
Appearance
The interface looked dated next to Safe Guard's current standards, and that quietly undermined dealer confidence in the tool.
The goal stayed the same through every change of plan: F&I teams running their contracts in the portal on their own, start to finish, with no sales rep on the phone.
Research
Finding where dealers gave up
I started with walkthroughs alongside the product owners, then interviewed the dealers and F&I staff who lived in the portal, to find exactly where they gave up and reached for the phone. Select any image to see it full size.
Key insights
Dealers were not asking for more features. They wanted the routine work to be obvious, so calling for help became the exception instead of the process.
Personas
Personas built from the interviews kept the design honest about its user: an F&I manager whose day is contracts and customers, not learning software.
Journey map
The map marked every point where a dealer left the portal and called a rep. That list became the redesign's target list.
The findings turned into a prioritization sheet built with the product owners, so the limited time went first to the tasks dealers called about most.
Key Moves
Three decisions that saved the project
Move One
Design the right thing first
I designed a full modern DMP and won approval for it from executives and product owners: a clean dashboard where a dealer picks a task and gets moving, shown here on a BMW Motorrad branded build. That approval mattered later more than anyone expected, because the modern design became the blueprint the rescue was built from.
Finding: the legacy portal needed a rethink, not patches. Decision: design the modern product properly and get it approved, even with a freeze on the calendar.
Move Two
The pivot: same design, legacy template
Then reality landed. The development manager could not build the full redesign before the freeze, so leadership halted it and pointed me at the legacy application. I reworked the approved concepts to live inside the existing template: the same flows and the same clarity, in a build the team could actually ship.
Finding: the deadline was fixed and the build capacity was not there. Decision: protect the dealer experience and change the delivery vehicle.
Move Three
Ship it in three months
From the pivot decision, the complete legacy redesign shipped in about three months, ahead of the freeze, with product owner and development approvals. At every checkpoint I demoed working before and after workflows instead of presenting documents, which kept executives and developers aligned while the plan changed under us.
Finding: stakeholders trust what they can watch working. Decision: demo real workflows at every step, especially when the plan changes.
Challenges
Working under real constraints
A stalled start
The first UX designer was fired after five months with nothing delivered. I inherited the deadline, the backlog, and the doubt.
Mid project pivot
My approved modern redesign was halted when development could not build it in time. The work restarted inside the legacy template.
Three month sprint
From pivot to shipped product in about three months, landing before the January 2026 executive freeze.
Sales as the help desk
More than 90 percent of dealers called their rep for portal help. Removing that burden was the whole point of the project.
Outcome
What changed
F&I teams now register contracts, track status, and manage claims in the portal on their own, and sales reps are back to selling. The modern design was not wasted work either: its concepts run through the shipped product, and it stands as the approved direction for what DMP becomes next.
Lessons learned
- Design early, pivot smart. The approved modern concepts became reusable assets in the legacy build and saved weeks when the plan changed.
- One goal beats a perfect plan. Holding to F&I independence, rather than the full redesign, aligned the business need with what development could ship.
- Show it, do not describe it. Before and after workflow demos convinced executives and developers faster than any document.