How Metric‑Driven Design Transformed a B2B Car Dealer Platform

In early June, the "Car Dealer Connect" (车商通) B2B product for 58.com used‑car dealers began a redesign that culminated in the launch of version 5.0 on August 28. Over three months, more than 14 research and design team members contributed to the upgrade.

01 Empowering the Business

The redesign integrated Yixin Auction services, enriching both dealer and personal car listings on the homepage and supporting decision‑making. This content service improvement raised the Customer Effort Score (CES), indicating that dealers—whether effort‑heavy, neutral, or effort‑saving—primarily needed better car source information.

02 Delivering Services to Dealers

Overall Impact

Daily Active Users (DAU): After removing seasonal fluctuations, three‑year DAU trends show a year‑over‑year increase post‑redesign.

Long‑term DAU cycle chart.

Daily Usage Time: By excluding cyclical usage patterns, the redesign shows a steady increase in app usage time, especially for sessions exceeding 30 minutes.

Comparison of daily usage time.

Customer Effort Score (CES): The redesign improved overall CES, reducing the proportion of effort‑heavy users and increasing neutral and effort‑saving users.

CES vs. NPS: Net Promoter Score also rose, with a higher conversion from detractors to promoters and improved CES for both groups.

Emotional Experience: Post‑redesign, app dependency, enjoyment, and information trust scores all increased, reflecting a more pleasant user experience.

Cross‑comparison of CES, NPS, and emotional experience.

Service Upgrades

Tool Service: The "golden position" tools on the homepage were restructured for scenario‑based service, boosting Android tool usage rates and CES contributions.

Increased Android tool usage.

Content Service: Expanded information flow at the bottom of the homepage increased content view‑per‑page‑view (VPPV) dramatically, though CES for content slightly declined due to limited personalization.

Content service performance.

Marketing Service: Integrated marketing across car source, data, and personal center scenes improved CES for each, aided by modular information presentation, prominent recharge entry, and exposure of financial data.

Connection Service: Enhancements to messaging, calls, and business opportunities increased CES, especially by adding homepage notifications, visitor info, and improved micro‑chat and call handling.

03 Design Extensions from Metrics

Negative data points revealed opportunities: a reduction in clicks on the car source list after simplifying the homepage header prompted UI adjustments and animated data displays to restore engagement.

Android app metrics showed lower UV and PV compared to iOS, leading to investigations of version‑specific data collection and event tracking completeness.

Data statistics screenshot.

04 Conclusion

Metric‑driven design proved essential for validating product and design strategies, uncovering hidden opportunities, and guiding continuous improvement. Combining experience indicators with CES offers a multidimensional view that confirms the success of the service‑oriented upgrade and informs future optimizations.

Future work will explore more robust, multi‑dimensional measurement methods.