THE WHAT

Identifying how new data can be most effective for a sales team, creating a more thoughtful approach to business sales

KEY SKILLS

• Ride-alongs / contextual inquiry
• Workshop facilitation
• Qualitative frameworks
• Product prioritization
• Stakeholder buy-in
• Strategic product design

STATS

Timeline: 4 months

Industry: Telecomm, Business Sales

My Role: Lead Researcher

Team: Project Lead, Jr Researcher, UX Strategist

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HIGHLIGHTS

Clear opportunities for leveraging customer data as a sales person

Sales product prototype — specifically a “lead feed” tool leveraging newly purchased customer data

Deeper insight into the approach of the most successful sales individuals in the company — recommendations for shifts in incentive policies and training programs

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THE DRIVER

“We purchased a large amount of data and need to get that data to the sales team”

There was an assumption that more customer data would lead to more informed sales individuals, a more informed sales approach and ultimately, more sales. This was a valid assumption and likely true, but we wanted to make sure we weren’t overwhelming the sales team with a dump of data. So our approach involved understanding where and how the data would be most useful.

OUR GOALS

Our goal was to identify specific points where the new data would add value

We did this by diving into the complexities of the sales process overall. We aimed to understand what key phases the sales team moves through and what information is most valuable when. We wanted to know what tools and technologies they were using today so that we could best plan for the future.

OUR APPROACH

We conducted ride-alongs and side-by-sides paired with deep-dive workshops

Ride-alongs allowed us to watch the sales team in action, seeing what information the were leveraging during each phase of the process. We planned our approach to observe a variety of sales individuals — from field sales, to phone sales, small business to enterprise, across all regions.

Workshops were role-based and allowed us to dig deeper into the specifics, ask questions about what we were observing in the field, and capture their reactions to very early ideas and possibilities.