🛠️ CS Operations Portal
✅ Used daily by 13 CS reps
✅ 4 systems replaced with 1
✅ Developer dependency eliminated
Overview
As Simify scaled to hundreds of orders a day, the CS team was managing support across multiple disconnected systems - Gorgias, Shopify, outdated database, a developer, and individual supplier portals - just to resolve a single ticket.
I designed a unified internal portal to bring order management, SKU mapping, and inventory handling into one place, working directly with the CS team and our developer to build a system the whole operation could run on.
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
TIMELINE
June 2024 – August 2024
TYPE
Internal Tool / SaaS
COLLABORATORS
CS Team Lead · CS Reps · Internal Developer
Context
At 400 orders and 160 support tickets a day, the CS team’s resolution process had become a serious operational bottleneck. Every ticket requiring eSIM intervention meant navigating four separate systems:
Gorgias where customer reached out to the CS team
Shopify to retrieve the order number
An outdated logging system to get the relevant ICCID
The supplier portal to actually cancel, refresh, or update the order
As we added more suppliers, each with their own portal and login, this only got worse. Changing a customer’s email address - something that should take seconds - required touching every one of those systems in sequence
My Role
I led the design of the portal end to end, working closely with our developer who was the architect for the technical structure and built the system. We discussed the operational problems together and defined what the system needed to do before either of us started building.
Before designing anything I spoke with the CS team lead and individual reps to understand exactly how they were working and where the friction was. I then designed iteratively, walking them through prototypes, watching them use early versions, and incorporating their feedback across multiple rounds.
Across the project I:
Conducted research with CS team lead and reps to map existing workflows
Defined the portal structure and key user flows
Designed all three core modules - order management, SKU management, and inventory upload
Iterated based on direct team feedback post-launch
Collaborated with the developer on system logic and data structure
Key Decisions
1. Order Management → One Place to Resolve Everything
The core of the portal was a unified order management system fed by both the Shopify API and supplier APIs simultaneously. CS reps could search by customer name, email, or order number and immediately see all associated eSIMs, their ICCIDs, and live status.
The option to open the supplier portal directly was still available but it was no longer the default path for every ticket.
A unified order view surfaces everything a CS rep needs to resolve a ticket without leaving the portal - ICCID, status, and actions all in one place.
2. SKU Management → Removing the Developer from the Loop
Every new product required mapping supplier SKUs to internal Shopify SKUs. Before this, that meant a developer had to be involved every time. I designed an interface that let the CS team handle mapping themselves, removing a bottleneck that would have compounded as the catalogue grew.
The SKU mapping interface gave non-technical users control over product setup, removing developer dependency for routine catalogue updates.
CSV Inventory Upload → Replacing a Single-Purpose Legacy Tool
Some suppliers sent inventory in bulk CSV files rather than via API. These were previously handled through a separate legacy app that was increasingly incompatible with how the business operated. I brought this into the portal so all inventory management lived in one place.
The automatic setup method is shown first to reduce friction, while manual and QR options remain available. Instructions are revealed step-by-step so users focus only on the action they need to take, helping simplify a technically complex process.
Impact
The portal became the operational backbone of the CS team from day one. All 13 reps used it daily, and the fragmented four-system workflow was replaced entirely.
Removed the need to switch between Gorgias, Shopify, developer, and supplier portals for standard ticket resolution
Eliminated developer dependency for SKU mapping and inventory management
Gave the team the tools to scale support alongside order volume without adding process complexity
The internal data structure and order management logic directly allowed for the Customer Portal which led to the My eSIMs section of the customer app
At 400 orders and 160 tickets a day, removing that friction had a real and immediate impact on the team’s capacity.
What I’d Do Differently
In hindsight, I’d have pushed harder to create the customer-facing self-service experience in parallel. The portal made the CS team faster at resolving tickets but giving customers the tools to manage their own eSIMs made a bigger impact. That’s what the customer portal and app eventually addressed, but moving faster on that side would have compounded the impact of this work sooner.