Scaling by Serving Employees
Time Study | Observational Research | Service Design | User Co-Creation | Evaluative Research
The process of scaling a product is a challenge for many software organizations. 3M had trouble getting their Sales Reps to sell a new product. Rather than viewing our sales force as a barrier, we worked with them to create the solutions they needed to reach organizational goals.
Impact
Focused leadership on the right problem
Stakeholders knew that Sales Reps didn’t want to sell their product. They saw many contributing factors and couldn’t decide which problem to solve first.
Sales Reps knew the time-consuming installation process was their biggest problem. I used a time study to help stakeholders understand just how bad this problem was. The numbers helped them empathize with Sales Reps and prioritize this project.
Built a new team
This was a big problem to solve. Person by person, we built a team as needs arose. We continuously made our case and were eventually comprised of 2 designers, 2 researchers, a product owner, a business analyst, and a data scientist.
Redesigned a service
The solution we delivered was a redesigned service. This service included 3 new features for Sales Reps, internal process improvements, and customer experience improvements.
3 new features for Sales Reps
Users
Sales Reps
3M Sales Reps experienced in selling physical products but less familiar with the sale and maintenance of digital products
Fantastic relationship builders
Visit customer daily
Motivated by commission
Operations Team
A variety of 3M employees responsible for many manual tasks required to set up and maintain an IoT product for customers
Holding a new digital product together
Working in many disparate systems
Pressured by growth goals
The Ask
Many Sales Reps were hesitant to sell a 3M IoT product, while a small group of Reps seemed to excel with the product. Stakeholders believed that the Sales Rep's lack of experience with digital products caused this. They asked me to “make all Reps as good as our All-Stars”.
Key research findings
Research Findings
Time Study
Sales Reps told stakeholders that the shop installation process was a time-consuming challenge. I conducted a time study to help stakeholders understand the severity of this challenge. The average shop installation took 50 hrs to complete. Previously, stakeholders estimated that all installs should take 38 hrs or less to complete. Quantifying the problem helped stakeholders finally focus their attention.
Observational Research
Through observing the entire onboarding process, I identified 2 major challenges that added time for the Sales Rep:
Challenge 1: the time it took for a customer to sign the contract
Challenge 2: the time it took to set up products for the inventory management portion of the system
Contextual Inquiry | Sales Rep during product setup
Process
Time Study | Conducted a time study to quantify the time it took a Sales Rep to complete shop installation
Observational Research | Mapped the existing onboarding process to discover the greatest challenges and opportunities for efficiency improvements
Service Design | Redesigned internal and external aspects of our service to solve the major challenges of onboarding
User Co-Creation | Developed concepts for 3 features with Sales Reps and the Operations Team
Evaluative Research | Iteratively prototyped and tested the 3 features with Sales Reps
Result
Our greatest accomplishment was framing the time-consuming installation process as a service design issue. Stakeholders thought the solution would be improvements in just one of the existing Sales Rep experiences. What we delivered was a completely redesigned service that significantly reduced the time for:
Customer to sign a contract
Sales Rep to set up inventory
Along the way, we also created efficiencies for the 3M Operations team and improved our product database setting us up for future success.