Relationship-Driven Sales Engagement

Process

Problem:

Sales is about human connections, not just a series of tasks and actions. The challenge for users lies in identifying which relationships matter most and how to prioritize nurturing them. Today this is a process that requires synthesizing notes, tasks, meetings, emails, and more. Too often, this results in convoluted workflows spread across multiple browser tabs and various tools, leading to unnecessary complexity and productivity costs.

Recognizing this problem pushed me to rethink our user experience approach and how we communicate and provide value to users. Historically, the product experience focused more on speeding up sales tasks completion rather than fostering meaningful connections. The result: a tool built for clearing to-do lists rather than building contextual paths to start and countinue customer conversations.

Hypothesis & Design strategy: Go from maintaining to-do lists to fostering relationships.

If we create hubs that connect users to their prospects, regardless of where they are in the buyer’s journey, and center the experience around building and nuturing relationships rather than just pushing outreach at scale, we can increase daily app usage and overall engagement while reducing workflow complexity and rep's productivity costs.

User need:

The prospect’s buyer journey often involves multiple sales representatives. SDRs/BDRs typically initiate the process, starting the chain of conversations, while account executives guide the deal from prospect to customer. Once closed, the relationship transitions to customer support reps, who continue engagement and nurture conversations that ensure retention. Because this journey involves multiple personas, I saw a need to compartmentalize the jobs to be done (JTBD) into general themes so that I can focus my design efforts that provide optimal value across multiple personas.

1. Individual Contributor (IC) Role: Primarily SDRs/BDRs, who manage multiple contacts across numerous accounts. Their role focuses on top-of-funnel activities, initiating sales conversations and driving early engagement.

2. Account Management Role: This category includes AEs, Sales Managers, and CSMs, whose responsibilities revolve around advancing deals, closing sales, and maintaining long-term customer relationships.

This categorization allowed me to define clear opportunity paths for meeting user needs while reinforcing our new strategy of fostering meaningful contact relationships. Based on user interviews and the creation of a JTBD matrix, I identified a key problem within the broader contact communication and relationship space. Both user cohorts highlighted a clear gap in our current product offering: an intuitive place for sales reps to start their day. Reps needed a better way to quickly understand...

• Where to start their workflows each day
• What communications to prioritize
• What accounts need attention

This insight shaped my design priorities, ensuring that I focus on real solutions that provide clarity, guidance, and motivation for our users in context to the clients they wish to provide servise to.

Ideation:

Before diving into pixel-perfect designs, site maps and wireframes help map out structure and functionality early on. Rough sketches explore different layouts, ensuring key pages align with user needs. From there, low-fidelity wireframes take shape, outlining content hierarchy and interactions before refining visuals. This approach keeps the focus on usability first, allowing for quick iteration and thoughtful design decisions.

Visual design:

With the wireframes in place, the visual design process focused on bringing structure to life with thoughtful typography, color, and hierarchy. Early explorations refined layout details while ensuring consistency across breakpoints. Gradually, elements were polished,balancing aesthetics with clarity to create a design that feels both engaging and functional.