Background

Sales Essentials’ university grade sales training courses and modules teach the fundamental skills and techniques of selling ethically and honestly. Their students include sales professionals from large corporations and small businesses, as well as seasoned experts and those new to the industry..

overview

The team from Sales Essentials wanted to develop the ideal commercial model and improve the conversion rate of a their self-service education portal. After an initial survey of the current clientele, it became clear that the course material was perceived as valuable and well-priced. So there appeared to be a disconnect in the path to purchase. 

It was critical to conduct competitive and comparative analysis because the self-service education market is saturated with options. Since the real value of the courses can only really be ascertained after purchase, how the product is packaged is very important.

Mapping out user journeys was a valuable exercise to show how bumpy completing tasks is for the user. With behemoth competitors like Lynda, the user experience needs to be slick to garner the attention of online buyers. 

Watching users navigate to purchase course material highlighted flaws in the IA which were given a makeover with closed card sorting exercises.

Who else is in this space? 

Analysis of competitors was conducted in order to help map the new Sales Essentials product offering. Competitors were assessed according to their digital offering and user experience in order to sort out what is working and what is not. At the very least, it is important to establish what potential students expect in order to benchmark the Sales Essentials product purchase experience.  Some interesting opportunities were uncovered such as most direct competitors performing poorly in the loyalty, promotion and newsletter spaces. This means Sales Essentials could take advantage and possibly offer promotions or loyalty programs as part of their product mix.

Survey insights

An online Typeform survey was conducted to reveal some insights into current users as well as potential students across a variety of industries. The survey was also shared amongst business networking groups and the uptake was very good. The results helped to create a picture of user behaviour and online learning portal expectations. It was encouraging that those who were aware of the Sales Essentials brand seemed to hold it in high regard especially with respect to the founder who is a prolific article writer. It suggested that there was possibly an opportunity to leverage this as a standout selling point.

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Identifying the obstacles to purchase

During one-on-one interviews, users were asked to navigate their way through the current site to purchase course material and from here the user journeys began to take shape. There were quite a few hiccups along the way including some challenges with the template that the site uses as well as broken IA and many lines of repetitive content. The IA was mended easily using an online closed card sort with potential users on Optimal Sort. This validated a simplified version of the current categories. Some template customisation will likely massage out the UI issues that were found. A content strategy was recommended and most of the long form content is to be repurposed as valuable newsletter content or as part of the blog. Testing in this regard is still to be conducted. 

Putting prototyping to the test

Wireframes were created and then put into Invision for interactive prototype testing. Using a selection of current users, potential users and some colleagues who were blind to the details of the project, users were asked to complete purchases and comment as they made their way through. More user testing will be necessary once the new website goes live as the integration with the online learning portal may reveal some painpoints to be remedied.

Conclusion

It was fascinating watching sales experts use UX research to develop their commercial model! We all learned a lot together. While the new structure is simpler and breezier than the current site, there are still some limitations of working within a template. There could be more opportunities waiting to be uncovered with further user testing on the new site.

*Site is in development. Watch this space for launch date.