Convene had developed a proprietary internal tool known as the "Availability Tool," which is designed to assist the sales team in keeping track of all available properties and their bookings for meetings and events. With this tool, users can easily view the type of block or hold that has been placed on a specific date and time for a particular property. The Availability Tool provides real-time updates, ensuring that the sales team is always aware of the latest information regarding property availability, enabling them to make more informed decisions and provide better service to customers.
Background
While the custom-built Availability Tool was a highly effective tool for many years, the growth of the sales team, the addition of new properties, and the constantly evolving times have brought new needs that the tool couldn't meet.
Problem
Two new initiatives were forming: eCommerce small meetings and Search within the .com site. A lot of this data would directly be coming from the Availability Tool, so product saw a need to make improvements to the tool first before we could be effective and offer the best experience for our external users.
eCommerce: We needed to determine at what point a meeting became too complex to sell online without the support of sales, and what could be automated. Our focus was on smaller meetings, which had been a major pain point for our sales team as they were time-consuming and often did not bring in significant revenue.
Search: The sales team needed to more efficiently sort through the vast amounts of properties and spaces. My responsibility was to understand how sales and their customers searched for properties and identify how we could make the process easier and more efficient.
Additionally, we noticed that information about properties and rooms was scattered across multiple locations, which forced sales to have many resources open while speaking with customers. We aimed to address this issue by consolidating the necessary information in one place.
Team
Myself (Senior Product Designer)
Beth Moeur (Product Designer)
Jon May (Product Manager)
Process
Since we were covering two research initiatives that were closely intertwined, I worked with my fellow product designer Beth. We worked out a plan and timeline and divided the research. Beth did competitive comparative research, while I led all interviews and workshops. Research also included card sorting, user segments, use cases, mental prototype, journey mapping, and finally a feature map that I presented to our product manager and we discussed what was MVP or feasible. for the search, we decided on a light touch and a total rethinking of the tool.
As for eCommerce, through interviews and research, I established a list of “what and when to sell online” without sales support, what was too complex, and additional considerations. The list would help the product manager validate with leadership and eventually shape and define the future of eCommerce for small meetings.
Outcome
Several proposals were presented to the product manager and we discussed the next steps. Future work is dependant on Convene and leadership decisions.
Research Board
Research Highlight: Availability Tool Workshop with Sales Team
Research Highlight: Journey Map
One of the significant improvements I made to the tool was revamping the classification of settings and filters. After conducting user interviews, we found that most general sales representatives had specific preferences for viewing the availability tool in about 99% of their searches. To streamline their experience, I restructured the settings to be more user-focused and made them permanent unless an outlier need arose. This involved moving pricing, types of blocks, non-competes, and time view to the settings panel, allowing users to easily adjust their preferences.
During the redesign process, I conducted extensive research and gathered feedback from users to create new filter options for the tool. The only pre-existing filter was the "type of room" filter. Based on user feedback, I ensured that filters were readily accessible and could be adjusted in real-time during customer calls. To achieve this, I incorporated a dynamic panel that could slide in from the left and remain visible while updating the search results on the right. By improving the usability of filters, we were able to enhance the overall user experience of the tool.
Additionally, I added neighborhoods as a filter since many customers prefer general neighborhoods as opposed to specific locations. This also would help Convene scale in the future.
The sales team often uses the .com site and other tools to engage with customers. However, it can be time-consuming to find the information customers need. Simplifying the availability tool by presenting relevant information would save time and reduce the number of open browser tabs. By clicking on a specific room, salespeople can quickly access a modal containing all the relevant information, allowing them to better serve customers and close more sales.
Vision Work: Search
As part of the work, I aimed to reimagine the tool to align with the future of eCommerce and search results and could work on the .com site for public users. Some preliminary concept work:
Searching with parameters results in a list view treatment. Option to exclude rooms that didn’t work with certain dates and times would be easier in this format.
Room Details expands in result list with all the details that sales need for customer inquiries housed in one location.