Build a quoting tool that can guide the sales representatives to have a value-driven conversation with their clients about HPE's cloud computing services
[HPE GREENLAKE]
Overview
Sales Representatives always sold products and services individually. The conversations with their clients mainly revolved around pricing. Given the high technical knowledge required to sell these cloud computing products they always had to rely on the technical experts to make the sale.
Responsibilities
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Design Leadership – Execute discovery workshop and plan design deliverables.
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Strategic thinking – Develop customer journeys and information architecture for the pilot release.
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Creative direction – Collaborate with overseas team to develop concepts for client showcase.
Impact
Delivered a scalable cloud computing quoting experience for HPE GreenLake. The proposed solution increased usability and service visibility, enabling sales representatives to have value-driven conversations with their clients.
Overview
Year
2019
Industry
Cloud computing services
Phase
Discovery to Delivery
Role
Lead UX Designer
Target audience
Sales representatives who lack technical knowledge to sell HPE cloud computing packages.
Goal
My goal was to create an experience that empowers HPE Sales teams to use the new pricing model to have value driven conversations with the clients, focusing on the ROI of HPE Packages.
Approach
Study the new consumption-based pricing model to identify information that would guide sales representatives. Proceed to design a scalable solution to accommodate future workloads.
Estimating timelines
The approach focused on understanding the supply chain context. The 'discovery' and 'define' stages were outlined based on the secondary research provided in the format of documents and presentations (as primary research was not part of the contract).
Fig. 1: Plan for a two-week discovery workshop
Starting the discovery with an ice-breaker
The exercise involved participants picking a random question from the bowl and sharing their thoughts with the group. The questions were crafted to encourage people to share their thoughts and opinions.
Fig. 2: Ice breaker questions for the workshop
Crafting a vision for HPE Quick Quote™ tool
The exercise focused on writing a headline in the newspaper. The headline would communicate the impact of the platform post its launch. Once completed the headlines read out loud for the team to discuss and form a common vision
Fig. 3: Different Headlines written by participants
Understanding people
Documenting people’s goals and tasks helped us understand their role in the supply chain process. The information was received second-hand by client stakeholders in the format of word documents and presentations.
Fig. 4: Documentation of different roles in the supply chain process. Illustration Credit: Freepik.com
Opportunity Mapping
The activity helped us map the journey of individual personas highlighting their tasks, motivations, pain points and goals. We divided the journey into different phases to look at each step in further detail. Lastly, we drafted opportunity statements to address the pain points.
Fig. 5: Ice breaker questions for the workshop
Fig. 6: Task flow diagram for Direct Sales Persona
Information Architecture
We created two types of architectures. One version featured a very detailed mapping of the quoting process, this was used by the design team and the Business Analyst Team. The second version was more high-level and was used to communicate the vision to client stakeholders.
Fig. 7: Information Architecture created on LucidCharts for Designers and Business Analyst Team
Fig. 8: A shorter version of the IA used to communicate the vision with client stakeholder
Setting design directions
The discovery phase was stretched across U.S. and India Time Zones. The team's constant communication helped us get the materialise the direction in 48 hours.
Fig. 9: Sketches of high-level directions that we created during the discovery phase
Design sprints
The design sprints were planned in correspondence with the development sprints. The activities for each day were meticulously planned to avoid overlaps and maintain efficiency.
Fig. 10: A snapshot of the template for our design sprint
Insight
HPE Direct sales representative struggle to have value driven conversations with their clients as they don’t have the technical expertise to sell cloud computing services.
Solution
Supporting text appears below technical terms that can be referenced by users as they are creating quotes. The ‘Guide me’ mode can be turned on/off by flipping a simple switch.
Fig. 11: Guide Me control that contextually populates information when required
Insight
Sales representatives struggle to configure services as they often land on the 'no results found' message. This is mainly because the available range of cloud computing services is hidden from view.
Solution
Making the dynamic range visible based on user selection makes the experience error-prone, allowing sales representatives to make informed decisions.
Fig. 12: Dynamic input range helps users always get a result for their configuration
Insight
Sales representatives find it difficult to identify the best-suited package for their clients, and often ended up leading conversations with cost.
Solution
The configuration focused on highlighting an 'ROI' value. This value was calculated based on the package configurations and clients usage.
Prototyping in Axure RP 8
Wireframes for the project were created in Axure as it gave a feeling of using an actual website. However, we faced a lot of issues in the handover process to the visual design team as they had to re-create all the assets.
Learning #1
Designing for Blockchain
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Once you add something to the Blockchain you cannot remove it.
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Blockchain technology does not allow the altering of information once it is added to the chain
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It's quite simple to backtrack information
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The best use-cases for this technology would be around transferring ownership from one party to another.
Learning #2
Understanding trade-offs
Understanding the MVP is a priority from a business perspective, it’s important to weigh the importance of which features add more value during the product development process.
Learning #3
Collaboration is key
Understanding the technology on which the product is developed can drastically impact the experience. For example, “A good experience should be forgiving” however, in this case, participants can’t edit the information once it’s on the blockchain ledger, hence, we had to think of alternatives to design around it.