The story of instafleet at instacar is a compelling narrative about overcoming initial resistance to embrace innovation. Initially facing skepticism from various departments, our team’s strategic approach transformed instafleet into a widely used and appreciated tool across the company.
The Nature of Resistance#
Resistance to new technology can manifest for several reasons. Fear of the unknown, discomfort with change, and perceived threats to job security are among the most common. A lack of understanding of the benefits of the new technology only makes it worse.
A key strategy in overcoming resistance is to actively involve employees in the change process from the outset. So we created Ticket Master — a Trello board that started as a humble attempt to bridge the gap between the rest of the team and our product team. Anyone across the company can drop in their thoughts and quickly document bugs, instead of a Slack channel where the probability of “losing” a request is almost 100%.
What surprised us was not just the volume of feedback but the quality and depth of the insights shared. This direct line of communication did more than speed up our improvement cycle from weeks to days (from ~4 weeks to 1 week or less, to ship improvements and fix bugs); it made every team member feel they had a stake in instafleet’s journey.
Parallel to Ticket Master, we took a more traditional but equally impactful route — user interviews. Sitting down with colleagues from operations, finance, and beyond, we listened. Co-speccing features like the AR&M (Accidents, Repairs & Maintenance) flow is a prime example, addressing a significant challenge in the car leasing industry at large: it enhances operational efficiency, contributes to a more structured process, and aids in improving cost management for repairs and services. This initiative was less about finding immediate solutions and more about cultivating a culture of empathy with a clear, collective goal: transitioning from 3rd-party tools to an in-house fleet management tool like instafleet.
Moving forward, every ticket matters, every voice matters. It’s clearly a collective mission towards acceptance and innovation.
Until the next one, keep iterating and stay curious!