Scaling Account Executives’ Efficiency Through Experimentation
🏁 The challenge
An energy company specializing in the free energy market (an alternative to the regulated energy market) had its Account Executives managing client relationships in an operational and paternalistic manner for many years. They were heavily involved in the daily activities and needs of their customers. However, as the company’s client portfolio grew, this paternalistic approach became unsustainable, avoiding scalability.
Based on this scenario, the following question guided the discovery process:
How might the Product Department support Account Executives in performing more strategically to manage their client portfolio?
The starting point
Understanding future scenarios was essential in defining the preferable role of account executives, helping to avoid the probable future that is largely shaped by current behavior.
It is important to acknowledge that if we don’t build the environment to foster the future we want for the role of the Account Executives, we risk drifting into the probable future, shaped by the natural progression of existing behavior, rather than the future we preferred for the role.
The account executive role: AS IS. vs TO BE
The current role of an account executive:
Operational and paternalist, focusing on past and present.
Focused on the client’s past and present by supporting them in navigating and resolving the daily bureaucratic challenges of the free energy market.
⭐ The preferred account executive role: Strategic and opportunist, focusing on the future.
Must focus on the future by analyzing the customer energy portfolio and consumption to identify opportunities that ultimately drive profits to clients.
🧠 My role
As Product Design Lead, I:
Defined the discovery strategy based on experiments, aligned with the PM and business goals;
Guided two designers in conducting interviews, prototyping, and concept tests, providing technical direction based on the research plan;
Managed design handoff, ensuring smooth collaboration with development teams.
⚙️ Design Approach
A 3-week discovery phase based on concept testing was proposed to address the main question through three key stages:
1st: Empathizing with Account Executives to understand the problem;
2nd: Internal ideation and prototyping;
3rd: Concept testing with clients.
1st: Empathizing with Account Executives;
The 3 first interviews:
To start the discovery, we had three exploratory interviews with Account Executives in order to understand the context of their current role
By analyzing the results, the team identified a key behavioral pattern in how clients interact with Account Executives.
This insight allowed the team to frame a hypothesis, which served as a catalyst for ideation sessions.
- THE HYPOTHESIS -
We believe that establishing an intermediary predictive channel between the Account Executive and the Client will deliver the information that clients need without overburdening the executive.
2nd: Internal ideation and prototyping;
To address solutions for the frame hypothesis, the team conducted ideation sessions based on “Crazy 8” to generate a wide range of diverse ideas that could be implemented by the product team. These ideas were then prioritized by the design team, along with PMs and tech leads, using a matrix that evaluated potential impact on users against development effort.
3rd: Testing and validating concepts
In the third stage, the team was responsible for conducting one-on-one interviews to test concepts using prototypes with users. The goal was to gain a deeper understanding of the problem by guiding the conversation through these concepts.
6 Concept testing interviews with clients.
4 Analysis Sessions - to convert insights into actionable steps.
✅ Results
Throughout the process, the team developed a roadmap of validated ideas, prioritized based on user pain points against minimal development effort. These ideas were classified into three categories: NOW, NEXT, and LATER.
As a “NOW” action, we defined a predictive solution to proactively inform clients in advance through a simple, bi-weekly email. This email could significantly reduce the need for users to reach out to Account Executives directly.
📜 Final Thoughts and Learnings
Concept Prototypes as a Trigger for Deeper Conversations
Foster conversations by presenting concept prototypes proved to be a quick and effective way to comprehend and get deeper information about user pains, opportunities, and how to address them.
Working Together with Product Managers to Address Product Discovery Results
Supporting Product Managers in prioritizing continuous improvement over technical demands is essential. In this project, my role as a Design Lead involves collaborating with the PM to balance these priorities, ensuring that design decisions deliver tangible value directly to users.
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Posted Dec 28, 2024
A quick proof of concept based on a hypothesis to uncover the real problem.
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