Streamlining B2B workflows for funeral tech
Improved Memories Connect CRM and memorial setup flow
CLIENT
Memories
OUTPUT
- CRM optimisation
- Mobile web experience
role
Senior Product Designer (Research, design, strategy)
IMPACT SNAPSHOT
- ↑ Memorial activation: from 22% → 71%
- ↓ Case creation time: from ~12 mins → 8.5 mins
- ↓ Case search time: from ~3 mins → 1 min
- Secured multi-year rollout to 200+ homes
TEAM
CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales
Overview
Since 2021, Memories and InvoCare have partnered to offer online memorials as part of InvoCare's funeral packages.
In 2024, we launched a 6-week pilot across 12 funeral homes to test adoption of four bundled Memories products (memorials, tribute pages, live streaming, and guest books).
If successful, the plan was to roll out across 200+ funeral homes nationwide. But first, we needed to optimise the memorial activation process and Memories Connect, the CRM funeral directors use to manage these offerings.
Problem
Even before the pilot, online memorials were available to every family, but only 22% were activating them. Families received information about the memorial at the end of their arrangement meeting, but by that point they were overwhelmed. Most never followed through.
To change that, we needed funeral directors to take on the activation process. But funeral directors manage arrangements under emotional and time pressure. Asking them to learn new tools wasn't realistic. So whatever we built had to feel effortless.
Goals
- For funeral directors
Simplify Memories Connect so funeral directors can create cases and activate Memories products quickly, with minimal training, even under time pressure.
- For the business
Increase memorial activation and demonstrate product adoption and commercial value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare.
Challenge
How might we achieve both goals in just a six-week pilot across 12 funeral homes, demonstrating enough value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare?
(phase 1)
Research
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
(phase 1)
Research
Interviews with 2 InvoCare Managers
Collaborated with InvoCare’s national and regional managers to ensure business alignment with goals and pilot constraints before designing solutions.
Key insight:
- Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance and usage to validate product adoption.
Analytics Memories Products
To understand current product usage at scale and validate behavioural trends using real data, measuring activation rates, engagement patterns, and product drop-offs.
Key insights:
- Online memorial had a low activation rate, only 22% of families from InvoCare funeral homes used it.
- Memories Connect CRM search logs showed repeated queries for recently created cases, indicating poor visibility and access to active workflows.
- Case creation in Memories Connect averaged 12 minutes, revealing opportunities to streamline the process under funeral directors time pressure.
Heuristics & Inspiration
To improve CRM usability, I reviewed the platform against heuristics and design best practices, drawing inspiration from government forms and modern CRM dashboards.
Key insights:
- The current UI lacked accessibility, with issues like poor colour contrast and inconsistent focus states.
- The lack of a clean, consistent UI made the CRM feel more difficult to use than it was, increasing the cognitive load on users.
- My research into government forms and CRM confirmed that multi-step layouts are highly effective at guiding users through complex tasks and reducing overwhelm.
Funeral Director
User Persona
InvoCare FD— explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.
Funeral Director
Journey Map
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Added filter and sort options
Enhanced case recognition
Include photos of the deceased
Improved case information
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reports tab to track product usage, engagement, and value, helping InvoCare monitor KPIs in real time
Proposed design
linking flow
Memorial QR code linking flow
Increased memorial activation
Enabled funeral directors to set up online memorials with minimal training, using a QR code flow that simplified activation
Proposed design
Design Solutions
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Enhance case search across branches by adding filters and improving the UI
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Introduce the new design system to improve UI scalability, accessibility and keep consistency across platforms and brand.
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reporting tab to track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.
Linking flow
Memorial QR Code
Increase memorial activation
Designed a login-free QR code feature, enabling funeral directors to scan an link a QR code to a specific memorial — Link memorials to QR codes efficiently and eliminating the need to manually log into Connect.
(phase 2)
Feedback
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Gathered real-time usability feedback to inform quick iterative updates
Add a secondary contact field to improve follow-up and increase memorial activation rates
Validated product concepts and identified friction points during daily use
- Made upcoming events visually clearer
- Introduced product status indicators to help funeral directors track progress
Iteration
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improve products tracking
Added product state visualisation
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Focus on one chunk of information at a time with the horizontal layout.
PROJECT
Impact
Memories secured a multi-year partnership with InvoCare, rolling out across 200+ funeral homes, validating the B2B model and elevating Memories from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a core component of InvoCare’s service offering.
Case form
Reduced cognitive load
Optimised navigation
↓ case creation ~12 mins to ~9.5
✔️
✔️
✔️
Cases tab
Improved usability
Repeated search events dropped by ~35%
✔️
✔️
Reports tab
Evidence of product-market fit
Easy access to data
65% of pilot FD accessed the reporting tab weekly
✔️
✔️
✔️
Linking flow
Under 1 min to link a memorial
No training or need to manually log into Connect
71% memorial activation rate
✔️
✔️
✔️
“
“
It just feels easier to use now — I don’t have to think about where things are.
Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia
KEY
Learnings
- I grew as a designer by balancing empathy with fast iteration, validating solutions in real time, under emotional pressure.
- Even with limited research capacity, I relied on design best practices and heuristics, and set up real-time feedback loops to catch issues as they happened.
- If I could change one thing, I’d involve funeral directors earlier to co-design and make bolder decisions without hesitation or delay.
NEXT CASE STUDY
Memorial Onboarding
Streamlining B2B workflows for funeral tech
Improved Memories Connect CRM and memorial setup flow
client
Memories Group
ROLE
Senior Product Designer (Research, design, strategy)
team
CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales
Duration
6 months (2024)
location
Melbourne
output
- CRM optimisation
- Mobile web experience
IMPACT SNAPSHOT
- ↑ Memorial activation: from 22% → 71%
- ↓ Case creation time: from ~12 mins → 8.5 mins
- ↓ Case search time: from ~3 mins → 1 min
- Secured multi-year rollout to 200+ homes
Overview
Since 2021, Memories and InvoCare have partnered to offer online memorials as part of InvoCare's funeral packages.
In 2024, we launched a 6-week pilot across 12 funeral homes to test adoption of four bundled Memories products (memorials, tribute pages, live streaming, and guest books).
If successful, the plan was to roll out across 200+ funeral homes nationwide. But first, we needed to optimise the memorial activation process and Memories Connect, the CRM funeral directors use to manage these offerings.
Problem
Even before the pilot, online memorials were available to every family, but only 22% were activating them. Families received information about the memorial at the end of their arrangement meeting, but by that point they were overwhelmed. Most never followed through.
To change that, we needed funeral directors to take on the activation process. But funeral directors manage arrangements under emotional and time pressure. Asking them to learn new tools wasn't realistic. So whatever we built had to feel effortless.
Goals
- For funeral directors
Simplify Memories Connect so funeral directors can create cases and activate Memories products quickly, with minimal training, even under time pressure.
- For the business
Increase memorial activation and demonstrate product adoption and commercial value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare.
Challenge
How might we achieve both goals in just a six-week pilot across 12 funeral homes, demonstrating enough value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare?
(phase 1)
Research
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
(phase 1)
Research
Interviews with 2 InvoCare Managers
Collaborated with InvoCare’s national and regional managers to ensure business alignment with goals and pilot constraints before designing solutions.
Key insight:
- Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance and usage to validate product adoption.
Analytics Memories Products
To understand current product usage at scale and validate behavioural trends using real data, measuring activation rates, engagement patterns, and product drop-offs.
Key insights:
- Online memorial had a low activation rate, only 22% of families from InvoCare funeral homes used it.
- Memories Connect CRM search logs showed repeated queries for recently created cases, indicating poor visibility and access to active workflows.
- Case creation in Memories Connect averaged 12 minutes, revealing opportunities to streamline the process under funeral directors time pressure.
Heuristics & Inspiration
To improve CRM usability, I reviewed the platform against heuristics and design best practices, drawing inspiration from government forms and modern CRM dashboards.
Key insights:
- The current UI lacked accessibility, with issues like poor colour contrast and inconsistent focus states.
- The lack of a clean, consistent UI made the CRM feel more difficult to use than it was, increasing the cognitive load on users.
- My research into government forms and CRM confirmed that multi-step layouts are highly effective at guiding users through complex tasks and reducing overwhelm.
USER persona
User Persona
InvoCare FD— explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.
Funeral Director
Journey Map
Ideation
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Added filter and sort options
Enhanced case recognition
Include photos of the deceased
Improved case information
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reports tab to track product usage, engagement, and value, helping InvoCare monitor KPIs in real time
Proposed design
linking flow
Memorial QR code linking flow
Increased memorial activation
Enabled funeral directors to set up online memorials with minimal training, using a QR code flow that simplified activation
Proposed design
Design Solutions
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Enhance case search across branches by adding filters and improving the UI
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Introduce the new design system to improve UI scalability, accessibility and keep consistency across platforms and brand.
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reporting tab to track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.
Linking flow
Memorial QR Code
Increase memorial activation
Designed a login-free QR code feature, enabling funeral directors to scan an link a QR code to a specific memorial — Link memorials to QR codes efficiently and eliminating the need to manually log into Connect.
(phase 2)
Feedback
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Gathered real-time usability feedback to inform quick iterative updates
Add a secondary contact field to improve follow-up and increase memorial activation rates
Validated product concepts and identified friction points during daily use
- Made upcoming events visually clearer
- Introduced product status indicators to help funeral directors track progress
Iteration
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improve products tracking
Added product state visualisation
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Focus on one chunk of information at a time with the horizontal layout.
PROJECT
Impact
Memories secured a multi-year partnership with InvoCare, rolling out across 200+ funeral homes, validating the B2B model and elevating Memories from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a core component of InvoCare’s service offering.
Cases tab
Improved usability
Repeated search events dropped by ~35%
✔️
✔️
Case form
Reduced cognitive load
Optimised navigation
↓ case creation ~12 mins to ~9.5
✔️
✔️
✔️
Reports tab
Evidence of product-market fit
Easy access to data
65% of pilot FD accessed the reporting tab weekly
✔️
✔️
✔️
Linking flow
Under 1 min to link a memorial
No training or need to manually log into Connect
71% memorial activation rate
✔️
✔️
✔️
“
“
It just feels easier to use now — I don’t have to think about where things are.
Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia
KEY
Learnings
- I grew as a designer by balancing empathy with fast iteration, validating solutions in real time, under emotional pressure.
- Even with limited research capacity, I relied on design best practices and heuristics, and set up real-time feedback loops to catch issues as they happened.
- If I could change one thing, I’d involve funeral directors earlier to co-design and make bolder decisions without hesitation or delay.
NEXT CASE STUDY
Memorial Onboarding
Streamlining B2B workflows for funeral tech
Improved Memories Connect CRM and memorial setup flow
client
Memories Group
ROLE
Senior product designer (UX/UI, research, strategy)
team
CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales
Duration
6 months (2024)
location
Melbourne
output
- CRM optimisation
- Mobile web experience
IMPACT SNAPSHOT
- ↑ Memorial activation: from 22% → 71%
- ↓ Case creation time: from ~12 mins → 8.5 mins
- ↓ Case search time: from ~3 mins → 1 min
- Secured multi-year rollout to 200+ homes
Overview
Since 2021, Memories and InvoCare have partnered to offer online memorials as part of InvoCare's funeral packages.
In 2024, we launched a 6-week pilot across 12 funeral homes to test adoption of four bundled Memories products (memorials, tribute pages, live streaming, and guest books).
If successful, the plan was to roll out across 200+ funeral homes nationwide. But first, we needed to optimise the memorial activation process and Memories Connect, the CRM funeral directors use to manage these offerings.
Problem
Even before the pilot, online memorials were available to every family, but only 22% were activating them. Families received information about the memorial at the end of their arrangement meeting, but by that point they were overwhelmed. Most never followed through.
To change that, we needed funeral directors to take on the activation process. But funeral directors manage arrangements under emotional and time pressure. Asking them to learn new tools wasn't realistic. So whatever we built had to feel effortless.
Goals
- For funeral directors
Simplify Memories Connect so funeral directors can create cases and activate Memories products quickly, with minimal training, even under time pressure.
- For the business
Increase memorial activation and demonstrate product adoption and commercial value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare.
Challenge
How might we achieve both goals in just a six-week pilot across 12 funeral homes, demonstrating enough value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare?
(phase 1)
Research
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
phase 1 (before pilot)
Research
Interviews with 2 InvoCare Managers
Collaborated with InvoCare’s national and regional managers to ensure business alignment with goals and pilot constraints before designing solutions.
Key insight:
- Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance and usage to validate product adoption.
Analytics Memories Products
To understand current product usage at scale and validate behavioural trends using real data, measuring activation rates, engagement patterns, and product drop-offs.
Key insights:
- Online memorial had a low activation rate, only 22% of families from InvoCare funeral homes used it.
- Memories Connect CRM search logs showed repeated queries for recently created cases, indicating poor visibility and access to active workflows.
- Case creation in Memories Connect averaged 12 minutes, revealing opportunities to streamline the process under funeral directors time pressure.
Heuristics & Inspiration
To improve CRM usability, I reviewed the platform against heuristics and design best practices, drawing inspiration from government forms and modern CRM dashboards.
Key insights:
- The current UI lacked accessibility, with issues like poor colour contrast and inconsistent focus states.
- The lack of a clean, consistent UI made the CRM feel more difficult to use than it was, increasing the cognitive load on users.
- My research into government forms and CRM confirmed that multi-step layouts are highly effective at guiding users through complex tasks and reducing overwhelm.
Funeral Director
User Persona
InvoCare FD — explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.
Funeral Director
Journey Map
Ideation
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Added filter and sort options
Enhanced case recognition
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Improved case information
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reports tab to track product usage, engagement, and value, helping InvoCare monitor KPIs in real time
Proposed design
linking flow
Memorial QR code
Increased memorial activation
Enabled funeral directors to set up online memorials with minimal training, using a QR code flow that simplified activation
Proposed design
Design Solutions
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Enhance case search across branches by adding filters and improving the UI
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Introduce a new design system to improve UI scalability, ensure WCAG accessibility, and maintain consistency across platforms and the brand.
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reporting tab to track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.
Linking flow
Memorial QR Code
Increase memorial activation
Designed a login-free QR code feature, enabling funeral directors to scan an link a QR code to a specific memorial — Link memorials to QR codes efficiently and eliminating the need to manually log into Connect.
(phase 2)
Feedback
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Gathered real-time usability feedback to inform quick iterative updates
Add a secondary contact field to improve follow-up and increase memorial activation rates
Validated product concepts and identified friction points during daily use
- Made upcoming events visually clearer
- Introduced product status indicators to help funeral directors track progress
Iteration
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improve products tracking
Added product state visualisation
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Focus on one chunk of information at a time with the horizontal layout.
PROJECT
Impact
Memories secured a multi-year partnership with InvoCare, rolling out across 200+ funeral homes, validating the B2B model and elevating Memories from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a core component of InvoCare’s service offering.
Cases tab
Improved usability
Repeated search events dropped by ~35%
✔️
✔️
Case form
Reduced cognitive load
Optimised navigation
↓ case creation ~12 mins to ~9.5
✔️
✔️
✔️
Reports tab
Evidence of product-market fit
Easy access to data
65% of pilot FD accessed the reporting tab weekly
✔️
✔️
✔️
Linking flow
Under 1 min to link a memorial
No training or need to manually log into Connect
71% memorial activation rate
✔️
✔️
✔️
“
“
It just feels easier to use now — I don’t have to think about where things are.
Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia
KEY
Learnings
- I grew as a designer by balancing empathy with fast iteration, validating solutions in real time, under emotional pressure.
- Even with limited research capacity, I relied on design best practices and heuristics, and set up real-time feedback loops to catch issues as they happened.
- If I could change one thing, I’d involve funeral directors earlier to co-design and make bolder decisions without hesitation or delay.
NEXT CASE STUDY
Memorial Onboarding