Automatic Assignment

Automatic Assignment

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Automatic Assignment

Overview

Overview

Overview

Our primary objective as a sales CRM tool is crystal clear - help small businesses grow by enabling salespeople to win more deals. In sales processes, one of the critical factors in closing deals is to ensure the appropriate sales representative reaches out to leads as quickly as possible, as research shows that prospects are 80% less likely to convert if they are contacted after five minutes or more.

The goal of this project was increasing the number of deals won, by ensuring the right opportunities were assigned to the right sales rep automatically.

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My contribution

My contribution

Product strategy


User Research


User Interface

The team

The team

1 Product manager


2 Front end engineers


2 Back end engineers


1 Product marketing manager


1 UX Writer

Year

Year

2023

2023

Context

Context

Context

As the team responsible for automations, we rely on a powerful engine capable of automating anything that happens within Pipedrive. One of our biggest challenges is that the feature is complex and targeted towards tech-savvy users and companies with more mature processes.

However, the needs for automatic opportunity assignment were much less complex. As an opportunity to reduce the adoption barrier for less tech-savvy users, we decided to create a brand new UI, reducing complexity and exploring natural language as a means of making the feature more user-friendly.

Prioritization

Prioritization

Prioritization

This project was researched, designed, and delivered within 4 months, so prioritisation was crucial. We had to ensure that GTM deadlines were met and address the most common use cases, enabling us to begin processing customer feedback and identifying additional opportunities for future improvements.

Research

I talked with sales managers and sales ops teams - which are usually responsible for lead allocation, to outline the most common jobs to be done:

Language and location

Language and location

Companies that operate in multiple markets, need to assign opportunities to teams based on either language or location.

Deal value

Deal value

Bigger companies allocate opportunities based on value, with higher value deals being assigned to more experienced sales representatives.

Handover

Handover

In companies with post-sales teams (project and account managers), opportunities y need to be reassigned at certain stages.

Fairness

Fairness

It is important to distribute opportunities fairly so that sales reps receive roughly the same number of leads to work with.

Solution

Solution

Solution

  • 1 - Multi-step rule builder

    To reduce cognitive load and help users onboard quickly, I divided the rule creation journey in three steps.

    Although we recognized the need to assign other entities (person and organization), for the MVP, we decided to focus on the most common use cases: newly created deals and leads, and deals that have progressed through the pipeline stages.

  • 2 - Special condition for reassignments

    The reassignment use cases happened when a deal was moved to a certain stage - this special condition was highlighted in the UI. This design decision was also made to help with the onboarding and to avoid any unwanted behaviour in case users forgot to add the pipeline stage - which could cause a spike in support requests.

  • 3 - Priority order

    Given that the order of the list is crucial and that every assignment is done in real-time, it was important to allow users to switch the priority order while also preventing accidental changes. The solution was to enable users to set the priority and only save it after they confirmed the new order.

  • 4 - Separate tabs for each rule type

    The assignment rules are evaluated in the order as presented in the interface, so any rules with overlapping conditions should be stored according to the event that would trigger them. This approach minimizes confusion for users and allows them to easily find the rules they need.

  • 5 - Error handling

    There are a lot of error and loading states that need to be incorporated in a product that is built from the ground-up. During this project I started thinking of all the edge cases and possible failures and I had to build the best error responses for each specific type of error.

  • 1 - Multi-step rule builder

    To reduce cognitive load and help users onboard quickly, I divided the rule creation journey in three steps.

    Although we recognized the need to assign other entities (person and organization), for the MVP, we decided to focus on the most common use cases: newly created deals and leads, and deals that have progressed through the pipeline stages.

  • 2 - Special condition for reassignments

    The reassignment use cases happened when a deal was moved to a certain stage - this special condition was highlighted in the UI. This design decision was also made to help with the onboarding and to avoid any unwanted behaviour in case users forgot to add the pipeline stage - which could cause a spike in support requests.

  • 3 - Priority order

    Given that the order of the list is crucial and that every assignment is done in real-time, it was important to allow users to switch the priority order while also preventing accidental changes. The solution was to enable users to set the priority and only save it after they confirmed the new order.

  • 4 - Separate tabs for each rule type

    The assignment rules are evaluated in the order as presented in the interface, so any rules with overlapping conditions should be stored according to the event that would trigger them. This approach minimizes confusion for users and allows them to easily find the rules they need.

  • 5 - Error handling

    There are a lot of error and loading states that need to be incorporated in a product that is built from the ground-up. During this project I started thinking of all the edge cases and possible failures and I had to build the best error responses for each specific type of error.

Results

76%

week 5 retention

52%

of all opportunities assigned automatically for active users

7%

uplift in deal/win ratio

uplift in deal/win ratio

Learnings

Learnings

Learnings

  • When building products, it's easy to brainstorm numerous problems to solve, especially when you're passionate about the project. However, this project has taught me the importance of being realistic about what you can accomplish within a given timeframe. Instead of trying to solve every issue at once and slowing down progress, we achieved the sweet spot of tackling the main pain points and monitoring potential future improvements.

  • It is very common to envision good UX as smooth and frictionless, however, adding friction in the right interactions can enhance the user experience by providing users with a reliable experience.