Improving sales ideation to better engage customers’ real business challenges

2017
VSA Partners
My role
  • Architected the app structure and navigation schema
  • Designed many screen types across dynamic functional areas like dashboards, questionnaires, collaborative editing, and evidence gathering
  • Synced interaction details with an embedded Agile development team and made screencasts and presentations for IBM developers in China
  • Wrote a user research test plan and selected web analytics events to track
Project results
  • Global-markets users created over $100 million in potential business in the first 5 weeks
  • 86% increase in pipeline the following year
  • 110+ sales teams around the world created ideas around IBM’s cloud and cognitive offerings
Situation
IBM needed to evolve its SellForward process from in-person events to a digital global platform. Sales teams around the world were siloed and risked offering generalized ideas to clients.
Solution
  • A full-stack progressive web app engaged sellers in a collaborative ideation journey, with in-app guidance and market insights from sales leaders and SMEs.
  • From business intelligence and thought-starters, sales teams moved from ideation into prioritization, and the ultimate output was a shareable opportunity brief and microsite.
  • From user research, sellers cited better collaboration as the top benefit. Sellers complimented the app for bringing teams together, democratizing contributions, and better preparing teams for account planning.
Engagement
Creative direction: Scott Theisen | UX: Andrew Day, Zach Schloss | Content strategy: Jessica Dillard | Design: Emily Hom-Nici, Luke Klenske, Nicole Pritchard | Development: Jan Kordylewski, Ryan Powszok, Travis Astor, Brendan Colthurst | Account management: Tobi DeVito, Lauren Sturla
UX architecture
The app structure aligned to the journey of a collaboratively evolving idea—beginning with Understand and advancing into Ideate, Prioritize, Build, and Engage.
Journeys
I documented how each journey stage addressed the needs and responsibilities of its actors—sellers, leaders, teammates, SMEs, and clients.
Flows
I created flows early, and higher-fidelity flows at a midpoint, to help stakeholders understand the app's dynamic states and how/when each type of user contributed or was notified about progress.
UX design
I whiteboard-sketched emerging ideas and plans for the designers and developers to react to. Further along I produced medium- and high-fidelity mockups to demonstrate new content and functionality.
UX design
Once the app's design language matured, after sketching, we produced high-fidelity mockups for stakeholders. I also recorded weekly screencast videos to share ahead of time with our colleagues in China, so they could consume new information and use our calls more efficiently to address questions and refinements.
Explore further