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About this project
As a UX intern at AskNicely, I was tasked with exploring how we can leverage customer profiles to improve product customisation for different industries. This case study details my research process, findings, and design recommendations for creating a more user-centric approach to customisation.
Project stages
Research goals
Identify ideal customer profiles (ICPs) within key industries like recruiting and aesthetics.
Understand user roles and workflows within these industries related to customer feedback collection.
Analyse the feedback from customer success managers (CSMs) on current customisation options.
Develop a mapping system to link ICPs with optimal team structures for enhanced product customisation.
Process
My research approach employed a two-step strategy, utilising both secondary and user research methods over a 3-week period.
3
weeks
2
feedback rounds
5
experts
Industry analysis
First, I conducted a desk research on the recruiting and aesthetics industries. This involved analysing industry reports and articles to understand typical team structures and customer feedback collection processes. This research aimed to identify common user roles and pain points related to CX data collection within these sectors.
Customer team structure analysis
Following the industry analysis phase, I transitioned to a team structure analysis for our customers. I identified a sample group consisting of 4 customers in the recruiting sector and 6 in aesthetics. After reviewing their business profiles and AskNicely user role setups, I drafted individual customer profiles.
By analysing these profiles, I identified commonalities across the groups and began to develop initial, simplified team structures for both industries. It's important to note that these initial structures were based on team set up analysis and excluded edge cases.
To explore more and refine the structures, I made notes for further exploration during subsequent feedback sessions with customer success managers (CSMs).
Feedback sessions with experts
To delve deeper and refine the initial team structures, I scheduled feedback sessions with CSMs specialising in the recruiting and aesthetics industries. Their firsthand experience working directly with customers in these sectors proved invaluable. They provided insightful feedback on the proposed structures, allowing me to make adjustments to the team hierarchy as we progressed through the discussions. These sessions were instrumental in refining the common team structure for each industry, while also highlighting key differences in user needs and workflows between the recruiting and aesthetics samples.
Initial maps were nearly similar
Findings
Based on the setup analysis and received feedback, I identified three patterns:
Team roles may go beyond standard user roles setup.
This suggests that certain companies might need tailored access levels beyond their user role.
New customers often opt for pre-built user roles setup initially, until they grasp how to customise AskNicely to their specific needs.
Additionally, some user roles remain unused despite being set up. This indicates a potential need for a more guided onboarding experience to better tailor our offering for their teams.
Further research is needed to determine whether this stems from intended use of AskNicely solely as a management tool, or if it's due to insufficient knowledge and support for introducing safe frontline team engagement. This presents an opportunity to expand the user base within the existing market.
Some customers are cautious, limiting frontline staff access to feedback or restricting it to a select few employees.
This suggests that management aims to shield frontline teams from negative or irrelevant feedback, possibly to maintain staff morale. They may require tools and support to achieve this goal.
Challenges
1. Varying company sizes presented a hurdle, ranging from businesses with only one user to those with hundreds. This contrast correlated with differences in setup complexity.
Variations in company sizes
2. Limited access to customers. During feedback sessions, it became apparent that some companies were still in the onboarding stage, resulting in insufficient data. Directly approaching customers, planned for a later stage, could alleviate this issue.
3. The sample size for feedback sessions, particularly in the Recruiting sector, was relatively small.
Final iteration
After gathering feedback from Customer Success Managers (CSMs), I revised the common team hierarchy for each industry by incorporating roles present in certain setups and confirmed during the feedback sessions.
What changed?
In the Recruiting sector, I introduced the General Manager/Marketing tier and included specific roles for frontline staff. In the Aesthetics industry, I added a Customer Experience Owner and, for some companies, a Regional or Learning and Development Manager. Similar to Recruiting, I expanded the list of frontline roles.
Considerations
Team structures may differ greatly based on company size, industry, and operational flow.
Customer interactions vary depending on the structure. Recruiting companies often have one-on-one relationships with their clients, whereas Aesthetics services often involve the entire team.
Having a larger sample size and conducting more research would be beneficial in identifying and understanding patterns more comprehensively.
Next steps
Moving forward, I'm particularly interested in exploring how engagement opportunities and user roles vary among companies based on their AskNicely pricing tier.
If the pricing plan does impact engagement opportunities, how can we ensure each tier provides value to make every customer's experience exceptional?
My learnings
Value of Combining Research Methods: Desk research and industry analysis provided a foundational understanding of the target industries, while user research (CSMs) offered valuable insights from real-world experience.
Power of industry expert knowledge: It is cruicial to collaborate with experts when conducting design research. Working with CSMs facilitated the gathering of user insights and ensured the research addressed real-world customer needs.
Just enough research: This learning is a nod to my favourite design researcher Erica Hall. By combining secondary research with targeted user feedback sessions with CSMs, I was able to gather "just enough" information to develop meaningful recommendations for AskNicely's team structures.
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