Upsell Opportunities.
Stakeholder:
Cisco
Duration:
Ongoing (4 weeks for the basic framework)
Year:
2020 - Present
My Role:
I was responsible for the data analysis and developing the design strategy for upsell opportunities.
Abstract.
Cisco has multiple teams that develop upgraded services, offers, and buying programs for Cisco's customers.
As Customer Insights began gaining more users, there was increasing demand from such teams to incorporate their data on our platform to inform account managers about those new offers.
I designed a system that allowed us to continue adding recommendations to Customer Insights without disturbing our current platform.
With the addition of Upsell Opportunities, Customer Insights became the single platform available at Cisco for account teams to analyze existing customer data while also identifying opportunities for growth.
Current Collection of Upsell Opportunities.
Though we were being approached by multiple teams, due to time needed for data validation and backend integration, we only had enough resources to address each recommendation one at a time. And so, I understood that
our key design challenge was having the ability to seamlessly add different offers to our platform.
Established factors that would influence our design process.
After analyzing a number of spreadsheets for the new data we had to display,
I found that each recommendation was utilizing a subset of information presented on our interface.
Insight on how temporary data could be incorporated within our platform.
This helped us narrow our ideation process. Instead of adding more tiles with additional information,
I began looking at recommendations as lenses that could filter or enhance our existing datasets.
Ideated Concept - with suggestion dropdown.
Ideated Concept - with suggestion chips.
Ideated Concept - with suggestion panel.
After exploring a number of different approaches, we found that keeping the recommendations independent from any of our existing tiles
- helped us easily expand in the future without disturbing our interface.
- had more clarity for someone reading through the recommendations.
Refined Ideation Concept.
However, while testing our concepts, we found that participants were unlikely to pay attention to the recommendations. It was quite unexpected due to the size and prominence of the panel.
To get a fresh perspective, instead of asking, "Why don't users click on any of our recommendations?", I asked our stakeholders, "Why would they want to look at these recommendations".
We had to present these recommendations in a way that motivated users to take action.
By simply reframing the questions we asked, it became clear to us that managers are always looking for a way to reach their quarterly goals sooner.
Turning recommendations into actionable insights.
By testing our designs with the updated layouts, we saw users engaging with the recommendations before anything else on the page.
Final Iteration.
This is an ongoing project. As I am writing this case study, we have 4 recommendations for our users.
However, we do see a scenario where we have recommendations in the double digits. To create a sense of structure, I decided to categorize suggestions based on the problems each recommendation is trying to solve.
Catagorizing recommendations.
Future plan once we move beyond 8 recommendations.
Conclusion:
With the addition of Upsell Opportunities,
Customer Insights has become the only platform available at Cisco for account teams to analyze existing customer data while also identifying opportunities for growth.
Creating a platform for different teams to easily promote their offers has allowed me and my team to more directly collaborate with them on their projects. It helps us get a deeper understanding of user needs and Cisco's business strategy, which in return helps us anticipate design opportunities for our platform.
The knowledge gained from working with multiple teams continues to help us enhance Cisco Ready with valuable assets.
So far the design has received a lot of positive feedback from our users and Cisco's leadership. We are now able to take our design to additional stakeholders and continue adding valuable actions for our users.
What I learned:
While designing for internal tools, it is always important to remember that a company is still a human-run organization. This project taught me that no amount of bold fonts and bright colors can incline users to take action, as a slight motivation.
Our strategy for scaling relied on users interacting with our upsell opportunities. We found that the best way to incentivize them was to clearly show that each opportunity could help them get closer to their quarterly and annual goals.
