Observability redesign, marketing automation, and a new platform for CSMs
A customer support observability tool at Netflix, used by a number of groups supporting customer streaming experiences and security anomalies. The project involved extensive research and a major redesign to prepare for AI integrations.
The 6sense canvas-based visual experience that helps DemandGen and Marketing Ops experts design, execute, and automate omni-channel marketing strategies with the right content for the right users at the right time - all in one place.
An integrated ecosystem at Oracle for CSMs, Ops leaders, and partners that includes web, tablet, and mobile experiences. The system connects all users, provides customer 360 views, simplifies onboarding, and increases renewals.
The 5W1H framework provides a solid foundation for the team to work from:
The highlights for this project were:
Using telemetry analytics for the app, I created a list of power users (combined with short bio’s from Slack). Together, these gave me 18 users to meet with, across groups.
I found the following themes (repeating patterns across groups):
The redesign of the information architecture took into account contexts that were most used, used occasionally, or never used (sometimes buried), as well as new objects that were coming into play in the roadmap.
This sitemap also provided a rudimentary “‘before and after‘ picture for Engineers to help in creating a more detailed change log.
I used the following approach:
Mapping detailed workflows for common, repetitive use cases happened in 3 parts.
Mapping flows in progressive depth:
The approach for usable, scalable patterns was:
Aside from initial help chat (RAG system), it became clear that users needed an assistant that immediately understood context based on the trigger (button or link) it was launched from (a common pain point in playback stream investigations).
In this design the user can locate the stream in question, select “Show Stream Context“ from the actions menu, and the system could immediately provide:
The previous workflow mapping would become essential for this stage of the design - reviewing strategies with the team for leveraging deterministic workflow data to give an assistant a foundation for running investigations.
The workflow assistant would work as follows:
Talking with MarketingOps and DemandGen users, we wanted to know if low adoption was based on limited functionality, price, or being leery of trusting automation without constant visibility into the impact of specific actions.
Users told us the following:
From an initial workshop to ongoing design iterations, we moved through a number of design formats. The three main contenders are shown to the right, along with pros and cons.
The decision tree canvas format would provide many benefits over other formats (users can start simple, scale as needed, and can branch logic in multiple ways). It provides extreme flexibility in how users design their marketing strategies.
Eventually, we could connect contexts across the platform that previously existed in silos.
After many rounds of pricing discussions, the strategy was to provide the app for “free” along with the ABM marketing package. Customers choose a specific tier that determines the number of credits they receive.
Even though each action you take in a workflow consumes credits, customers can start building their workflow with only one or two actions. They can run on-demand tests or automate the workflows daily or weekly.
The model removes barriers toward adoption and allows customers to start small and scale as they become more comfortable with the app.
I set up libraries of mockups and prototypes for those elements that contained a large number of moving parts - and would create mass confusion without a high amount of organization.
From these libraries, engineers and Product Managers could quickly view any play (workflow template based on a marketing strategy) and the node configuration panels for each action a user could take.
This made communication, iterations, and updates possible in a complex, fast-moving project with multiple stakeholders.
Node Config Panels were needed for 80+ nodes. Interactive Figma components and Auto Layout were used for multiple iterations and fast updates.
I started minimalist with visual design until we had customer feedback telling us otherwise. We weren’t yet sure how complex workflows would become and I didn’t want visual clutter to weigh the experience down.
Leveraging wireframing tools, such as Miro and Figjam, we iterated on templates that were primarily focused on the most common GTM strategies.
These iterations also help us work through.
Meeting weekly with over 30 beta users to go through their flows and any any issues they encountered, we were able to make most updates within the next sprint. We also conducted usability testing with 11 users to address any final questions or concerns around interactions and content.
The app was ready for GA, with the following feedback:
The Beta period became more than just a method of getting feedback prior to GA.
Because beta users are given free credits in order to try out the tool, they can run their “tests“ as live production campaigns - and benefit immediately from the testing. So, unlike many passive beta testers, these users were actively engaged.
While we already had basic AI chat capabilities for searching help docs, we needed to expand that with deep linking and recommendations as a next step.
Since CSMs were a new role to Oracle (many coming into the company through acquisitions), no current systems were dedicated to the role and most customer data was stored on spreadsheets or required CSMs to navigate a labyrinth of Oracle homegrown apps.
After a few weeks of almost constant meetings, across CSMs and Ops - and reviewing differences in workflows across services and regions, themes started to emerge:
After initial research, two primary facts became clear:
I created strategies for a starting point to the experience within the requirements, ambiguity, and short timeline:
Oracle’s new “Universal Subscriptions“ model allowed customers to choose a monthly spend limit and contract length. We knew CSMs needed to monitor (and be alerted on) usage from the perspective of these new pricing buckets.
While we were creating the app for internal use, we kept our eye on the possibility of CLM becoming a ‘marketable SaaS product’ since an app dedicated to CSMs was not currently offered at Oracle.
With very few exceptions, CSMs rarely needed to spend an excessive amount of time with deeper dives. A majority of their primary tasks (the biggest value ad for customers) was in quickly monitoring usage, health, key events, and onboarding statuses.
The first feature (and design goal) was:
Through continual collaboration after project kickoff, I suggested a simple format that would provide the highest priority CSM requests for the first release:
This expandable row content provides:
The eventual goal with events and notifications was to have an in-app “Notification Center“ that provided access to all notifications, with search, filter, and foldering options.
This simple timeline view, accessed with one click from the Customers list, provided a few higher priority events to lay the foundation for future work.
Because many large enterprise customers were onboarded by large consulting partners like Deloitte and Accenture, CSMs needed a way to bring them into the fold so that any project updates reflected immediately in the CLM database.
The team spoke with a few project managers from these partners to understand what core data they needed, what they should have access to, and a little bit about their environment. When learning that many leverage tablets or touch-screen laptops, I quickly redesigned the existing app into a tablet-friendly format by:
Mobile became a core requirement in order for CSMs to stay connected to alerts that may highlight the need for immediate action.
A new mobile project was started on top of the large backlog of items we were currently working through. We needed a simple starting point to leverage existing patterns and platform conventions where ever possible and to organize mocks in a way that streamlined discussions.
To that end, I created a combination prototype and sitemap. Team members could either click through the mobile prototype and see where in the app structure that page was (by following the highlights) OR jump immediately to a page being discussed by clicking on a page in the sitemap.
After getting buy-in on the structure, navigation, and content, I created spec docs for engineers to call out specific layout nuances, icons, colors, etc.
App adoption went from 0 to 4000 users in a little over a year after different groups at Oracle (Sales, Operations, etc.) found that they could access customer 360 data very quickly with CLM.
The consensus was that CLM provided a solid foundation for growth and created improvements in: