Managing business calls with Elisa Vakio

Answer and manage calls to your business number from your own phone. Lead design for a B2B mobile app, from first concepts to launch and the feedback loop that guided it after.

Lead UX/UI DesignerElisa · 2019–2021

Elisa Vakio gives small and medium-sized businesses a business number that rings through to the people behind it. Employees answer calls on their own phones, with no switchboard or desk phone needed.

The mobile app gave those employees control over the service for the first time. They could set their own availability, see the group's call history, and follow up on calls nobody answered.

Vakio app home screen listing two call groups, each showing whether it's open, your availability and how many members are availableGroup detail screen showing the group's status, your availability toggle and the list of group membersAvailability screen with a toggle for each group you belong to
Home, group details and your availability across groups

My role

I was the lead designer on the app for two years. I validated the first concepts, took the MVP through implementation and launch, and set up the research and feedback loop that guided the product after release. Vakio was also one of the first apps to bring Elisa's design system to mobile, so the work shaped how that system grew beyond the web.

Built on user needs from the start

The app came out of an opportunity to turn Elisa's lightweight switchboard into a standalone product, one that offered more to existing customers and could win new ones.

From day one, the rule was that every feature had to trace back to a real user need. Vakio is a B2B tool, but we held it to a consumer standard. The core feature set came from several rounds of customer interviews and concept validation, and we kept only what proved most valuable to current and future users.

Calls screen on the Important tab, listing missed calls and a call flagged by a colleague with a noteCall detail screen with actions to add a note, flag or call back, and a timeline of the call thread's events
The Important list surfaces missed and flagged calls; call details show the thread's history and notes from the group

Focus on the job, not the tool

Vakio exists to support people's actual work, so the app is designed to stay out of the way. Signing in takes one step: enter your phone number and verify the device with a code. From there, information is laid out plainly, and interactions follow familiar patterns refined to as few steps as possible.

In a few taps you can see who called, change whether you're available, and leave a note on a call thread so the rest of the group knows what's been handled.

Calls list with a call expanded to show quick actions: details, add note, flag call and callAdd note screen explaining the note is visible to everyone in the groupNotification settings with toggles for unanswered calls, calls marked done, flagged calls and status changes
Quick actions on a call, adding a note for the group, and choosing which notifications you get

Launch, and what came after

The first version launched to customers in late 2019. One of our main goals was a working customer feedback loop from day one, so development could keep the same user-led approach after launch. That loop let us make informed decisions about new needs and refine existing features when they fell short. Feedback showed, for example, that some features were described in technical terms that only made sense to us. We rewrote that wording in plain language anyone could follow, and improved the icons in places so their meaning was clear at a glance.

I wrapped up my work on the app in summer 2021.