Launching a new sales reporting system
How can we improve user experience on the sales reporting tools in Adcentral?
ROLE
UX Researcher
OVERVIEW
Indeed was revising and transforming it's systems and processes by moving out of it's legacy system- AdCentral
TOOLS/METHODOLOGIES
Surveys, In-depth Moderated Interviews, Show me sessions, Miro, Reduct, Lucidchart
TIMELINE
Jan 2022- March 2022
This research covers 4 critical reporting tools in the Sales operations process (Sales dashboard, Rep Dashboard, Account Executive Report, Performance Dashboard). These reports are used by reps to determine their pacing (performance), with individual user counts in thousands. It is important for us to know what is being used today, what information is relevant and how will moving these reports to a new platform affect employee experience, performance and productivity.
BACKGROUND
The Challenge
In Sep 2021, I carried out a discovery research on Quota and Commissions which revealed transparency issues surrounding credit visibility in Adcentral, particularly on the Sales Dashboard. Sales dashboard enables reps to view revenue generated against quotas set in Adcentral and also to know how they are pacing in a quarter.
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To continue the deprecation of Adcentral, we need to further investigate how Sales dashboard, Rep dashboard and other sales reports are being used today (what is relevant or redundant), the goals/expectations of users and pain points associated with the usage of these pages in Adcentral.
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The objective of this research is to inform the redesign of the sales reporting tools for Indeedians.
METHOD
The Approach
PLANNING
To have a background knowledge about the reporting tools and get alignment on what we are trying to learn from this research, I had stakeholder interviews with 3 sales directors and senior account executives, together with my 2 product managers. These interviews were also important in the participant selection process to ensure we were capturing insights from sales reps from all markets and segments.
RECRUITMENT
Collaborating with my Research Ops team and sales directors, we were able to identify and recruit about 80 participants for the study. I grouped the participants based on their team type, segment and market.​
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Team type: Inside Sales, Outside Sales, Client Success, Inside Sales, Strategy Analysis, Inside Sales/Outside Sales
Market:US, EMEA, APAC
Segment: Enterprise, Acquisition (ACQ), MM, WB-ACQ
INTERVIEWS
Interviews were conducted with 8 groups that comprised of the different team types, markets and segments to understand what users' needs, goals and expectations are when they use the reports, and how they use it.
Also, capture what information on the dashboards is relevant to different user groups (for example Acquisition reps in the US vs Enterprise reps in EMEA)
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From the interviews, I was able to identify different use cases of the reporting tools, parts of reports that are redundant and the ones reps can do without.
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SURVEYS
To validate the findings from the interviews, reach more reps and answer the question; what information on the dashboards is most valuable? There were about 200 respondents to the survey from which I was able to correlate the features people found most valuable during the interviews. These insights informed which uses cases to prioritize for and what parts of the reporting tools are essential for each groups.
A few of the questions that informed the interview script and consequently the survey questions:
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What do users use the sales dashboard, rep dashboard, account executive report for? What goals are they trying to achieve? How often do they use it/check it? Is it during a certain time of day/part of the month/quarter?
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What information do users need to check for on the dashboard? Why? What prompts them to want to check? Are there any implications if they are unable to see this information?
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If Adcentral is no longer available, how would users expect to view these reports? Where would they expect to go to view it?
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What do users like about these reports (sales dashboard, rep dashboard and account executive report)? What are the pain points they experience while them? What improvements would users like to see ?
REFLECTIONS
Impact and Thoughts
The success of my first research project gave birth to new questions that needed to be answered. The insights gathered from the interview sessions and survey responses was synthesized, summarized and presented to my team of product managers, UX , Engineering teams, Sales operations and senior leadership.
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Based on this research, the team​
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Identified priority data points to inform the re-design of the reporting dashboards as we move out of Adcentral
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Understood most important pain points that sales reps and directors are facing and how these unmet needs can be resolved