Dynamic Sales Playbooks – Field enablement CRM content integration

Client: Nexidia

Nexidia offers a platform that unlocks the untapped value inside unstructured audio and video content by making it searchable—enabling you to achieve competitive advantages, operational efficiencies, and new business opportunities.

et|icon_compass_alt|

Project Summary

Nexidia’s sales and marketing leadership wanted to provide field sales reps with the right collateral and coaching at the right place at the right time, from within their CRM system of engagement.

et|icon_puzzle|

My Responsibilities

User Research
Vendor Selection
Solution Deployment
Content Audit
Interface Design

et|icon_hourglass|

Timeline

4 weeks start to finish.

et|icon_chat_alt|w

Interesting Facts

Nexidia was acquired by NICE mid-project. Roadmap likely included migration to acquiring company’s CRM and enablement technology downline.

The Process

This project comprised four phases end-to-end, culminating in deployment of the dynamic playbooks solution.

b3lineicon|b3icon-microscope||Microscope

Research

I interviewed multiple sales leaders, sales reps, marketing staff, and other stakeholders regarding low sales playbook adoption.

b3lineicon|b3icon-jury||Jury

Vendor Selection

I compared multiple tool vendors and selected best fit for functionality, CRM integration, and price.

b3lineicon|b3icon-checklist||Checklist

Content Audit

I validated Nexidia’s CRM content libraries to ensure content was current and metadata was optimized for solution filtering.

b3lineicon|b3icon-responsive-design||Responsive Design

Deployment

I configured the solution and designed the interfaces that were embedded in CRM screens.

Researching the Problem

Challenges and Objectives

Nexidia’s field sales team was slow to adopt product and industry sales playbooks, so messaging to customers and prospects was inconsistent and often outdated.

I worked with sales leadership to survey the field and compare current state with previous playbook vision, dating back to a previous year’s sales kickoff meeting when playbooks were initially rolled out.

I then compiled feedback and led a brainstorming exercise to drive and validate solution requirements.

Selecting a Vendor

Requirements in hand, I researched multiple vendor tools and recommended to sales leadership the Sales Coach tool from Cloud Artillery.

Fully-integrated into CRM, the tool provided Nexidia the ability to present logically-grouped playbook content automatically filtered by Opportunity record data (customer industry, sales stage, products of interest, etc.).

The tool did not include extraneous process or excessive data entry (both of which were obstacles to adoption of previous solutions) and it allowed Nexidia to use its existing content and integrated CRM libraries.

Auditing Content

To ensure the new playbooks tool would surface only relevant, current, effective content, I led an audit of Nexidia’s 1,500-item content library.

First, I validated the metadata schema with the product and marketing teams.

Then, I performed the audit leveraging native CMS functionality and external tracking spreadsheets.

With redundant, outdated, and trivial content purged from the CMS, and with all remaining content optimized, I ran a battery of test queries against the library to simulate those the playbook tool would later perform automatically.

Deploying the Solution

With the playbooks tool now installed in Nexidia’s CRM, and the content fully-optimized, I configured five separate playbooks (one for each opportunity type: new business, renewal, partner, etc.) that included situational coaching and links to supporting content.

Immediately following rollout, I conducted sample interviews of field sales reps, sales leaders, and content creators. Responses pointed to increased adoption of sales playbooks, and an indication this would make their jobs easier.

Nexidia was acquired by NICE mid-project. The company’s operational roadmap likely included migration to acquiring company’s CRM and enablement technology downline.