Problem
The business of assessing large commercial buildings for sales and compliance with janitorial equipment is a lucrative market with few technology providers that streamline the process for sales representatives. VisionX was commissioned to create an application for a client seeking to improve the inefficiencies in the current sales process and use the latest technologies to reduce the time sales representatives took to create sales presentations.
Research
Because VisionX was hired to provide a better solution, our teams worked hand in hand to understand where the current process was an impediment to sales representatives. Our design team conducted interviews and collected surveys directly from sales representatives. VisionX also held one-on-one sessions to better understand a representative’s typical workflow, the frustrations with the current process, and additional features that would improve their efficiency.
Synthesize
Through our primary research, VisionX learned that each representative can complete four different types of assessments, with 80% of their time spent on “Discovery” assessments. The Discovery assessment consists of prospecting for clients and attempting to win contracts for the company.
Because most of an agent’s time was allocated to this assessment, the VisionX team decided to focus on improving this step of the sales process as version 1 of the application. It became apparent that speed and ease of use were the two most crucial requirements for an agent. We learned that an agent’s time within a walk-through was often very limited, and agents often did not have time to add names for individual rooms or keep track of floor numbers.
The application had to be intelligent enough to organize their photos and notes for them so that it would later be easier to create their sales presentation.
Prototype & Design
After assessing their current application, VisionX decided to build something completely new that would better cater to the needs of an agent’s onsite assessment.
Through our interviews, agents reinforced that a timeline view for photos of a walk-through would give enough context for them to create their sales presentations.
Our initial prototypes explored various UIs to see which the agents preferred. As displayed in the graphics, we designed a “chat” style interface where agents could add notes and photos, which would be displayed in a vertical timeline. In addition, we created a more detailed approach to test if the addition of more notes would help speed up the presentation creation process later. The VisionX design team also tested a camera view in which the timeline would be displayed above the capture screen, which would allow agents to quickly access photos and add details where necessary. This last approach was later approved.
With this camera-focused view, we wanted to keep the controls very simple and accessible to the sales representatives, many of whom were 40 years of age or older. We designed buttons to be large and added text size preferences so that the application was complimentary rather than an impediment.
To keep the application as useful and focused as possible, each screen had, at most, one possible action. We also kept the details options very simple and streamlined so that only crucial information related to the sales presentation was recorded.
As a companion to the application, VisionX created an agent portal where sales representatives could access their walk-throughs when creating their sales presentations. This allows agents to simply use their phone while on site and then later have access to rich details of each session through a desktop experience. Using the portal, agents are able to locate and download all of their photos to aid with their sales presentations, allowing them to stay organized.
Results
The Mission Control project is still ongoing and is undergoing additional enhancements from the product pipeline. Initial feedback has been very positive:
“The work (VisionX) just showed us with is the best I’ve seen from any vendor we’ve worked with in 6 years. Thanks for capturing the vision, looking at it from several different angles and improving it in a dozen ways.”
