Case study 01 · Totango

Taking a customer-success platform into the AI era

Role: Head of Product Design
Years: 2022–2024
Team: 4–5 product designers
Scope: Whole platform, from design system to AI experience

Illustrative recreation of Totango’s conversational AI assistant

01 · The context

A strong product that was hard to understand

Totango helps customer-success teams manage accounts and catch churn early. The core was solid, but the experience had grown without a system. The same need was solved with different styles and behaviours across the product, and filter types changed from area to area. Components and basic flows were missing, some flows were broken, settings had sprawled, and navigation confused people. CS users kept asking for missing features, and sales found the product hard to demo and sell.

02 · The hard problem

Turning data into insight, through a new kind of interface

The platform held rich customer data, but turning it into useful AI insight was hard, and there was no established pattern for talking to a product. The conversational experience had to be planned and built from scratch, with few examples in the industry to learn from, on foundations that weren't ready for it.

03 · How I led it

Three decisions that shaped the outcome

01
Develop the team, don't replace it
The team was tired and underperforming. Instead of replacing designers, I coached and grew them, and set the bar by working hands-on alongside them.
02
Fix the foundations first
I unified the design system, patterns and navigation, so the AI layer would sit on one consistent product.
03
Go fully conversational, early
Instead of adding AI onto existing dashboards, we moved to a full conversational AI experience before most of the industry did.

Totango’s platform before the redesign — Before2023: the same needs solved with different patterns across the product.

04 · Outcome

design system and navigation model, unified across the platform: 1design system and navigation model, unified across the platform
conversational AI experience shipped to customers, early in the industry: Liveconversational AI experience shipped to customers, early in the industry
designers promoted: senior designer to design manager, junior to senior: 2designers promoted: senior designer to design manager, junior to senior

Delivered with the team I inherited, by growing people rather than replacing them.

05 · What I learned

In a market moving this fast, leadership means adjusting quickly and staying hands-on. My team moved faster when they saw me leading by example, not from a distance.