Land and Expand

When I joined IBM Design in September of 2015, I participated in a three month intensive design bootcamp. The last six weeks of the the bootcamp included an "incubator" project where new hires are tasked with coming together as a team to collectively envision new opportunities or future possibilities for traditionally older (legacy) product lines. Our team had the pleasure of working with the IBM Commerce team.

From our research and in depth interviews, we discovered a significant pain point for customers working with the IBM Commerce team.

Due to a lack of visibility, marketing executives are unable to evaluate how new software solutions are being adopted into their organization.

Tools of the trade

Customers and Stakeholders Interviews

In order to enhance our understanding of Tom and his pain points, we interviewed experts in the marketing field. Some of these people fit the Tom Persona to a T - including Tom Johnson of Clorox, Dave Gerridge of Fresh Direct and Clive Underdown of Amia. Others work with Tom directly at IBM or are indirectly associated but well versed in his needs. All of these stakeholders contributed meaningful insights and helped us to better understand how Tom works and how we can make his life a little better.

I want to see what our goal is and the obstacles that can prevent us from getting to that goal.
- Catrina Boisson, IBM Customer Experience Specialist
I can’t identify weak spots on my team. It’s a big blind spot for me in general.
- Tom Johnson, VP of Marketing at Clorox

Research Insights

The following four insights we gathered after hours of interviews and conversations with our users and stakeholders:

Hills

Main Hill: Tom, the VP of Marketing, can see an overview of his team’s customer experience health in five minutes or less.

Sub Hill 1: Tom, the VP of Marketing, can see his team’s capabilities and identify issues with software adoption without having to speak to anyone.

Sub Hill 2: Tom, the VP of marketing, can verify or validate that his team is employing marketing best practices without leaving the experience.

Our Execution

In the wireframes below, we take you through our proposed solution for Tom.

Tom is finally done with the disappointment that was Mailchimp, and has purchased IBM Marketing Cloud. Still slightly skeptical and jaded, he begins to walk through the onboarding process with the IBM team, setting his expectations for his teams cap…
About a month into the process, Tom checks the progress overview page and is not only pleased to see that his team is projected to finish on schedule, but that they also have continued being productive with the software along the way. For example, t…
Within an individual’s onboarding progress page, he can see individual progress and demonstration of skills with the new tool. This visibility means that his expectations of their performance will be realistic and will give him the confidence to beg…
With the assurance that his team is becoming more proficient with the Marketing Cloud, Tom begins to break down the vision from his boss into more ambitious business goals, knowing that his team's capabilities are growing. After speaking with Jane, …
Tom checks in on these goals prior to their fall holiday initiative to ensure the trending projections are heading in the right direction. In this quick overview of the trend, he can quickly see what factors have affected his business goals in the g…

Six months later in our product experience...

Now that some time has passed and Tom's teams have comfortably immersed themselves in the IBM Marketing Cloud, Tom checks in on the overall health of his customer experiences.

He sees at the top of the screen a collection of the top three customer experience initiatives he has indicated are the most pertinent to him. He is also greeted with a series of alerts informing him of key events or progress within specific experie…
Ann pings Tom to check out one of the changes she recently made to a customer experience, so he finds the change on the alert list and expands it. Immediately, he sees the trend, the progress on a major KPI, and some of the most recent actions taken…
He dives deeper into that particular CX to find more specifics on its performance, leading to a more in depth view of that experience's strengths and weaknesses alongside an overview of how it is performing with respect to the major business goals h…

Additional Training

Now that Tom and his teams have shown themselves to be somewhat proficient with their new software, Tom is presented with the opportunity to further his team's skills through advanced training and certification. He decides to select a custom trainin…
Based on recommendations from the CX health page, Tom selects a group of modules that focuses on automation, which includes Send-time optimization. Throughout the process of setting those prioritized learning goals, Tom is also presented with the op…
Once those goals have been set and Tom's teams have started training, Tom can check in on the progress they are making, giving him a sense of the increased level of adoption that is taking hold.

Feedback from our Stakeholders

“[This solution] would not only help with the adoption of the product, but the [customer] satisfaction as well. ”
— VP of Marketing at Clorox, Nov 12th, 2015