BETA timeline
KEY
Accessibility
Other
Lab research
Online research
Partners collaboration - co-design
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Opportunity Management Sales Pitch
Audience and tool used
- 30 users on UserTesting.com
- 15 in Scotland
- 15 UK-wide
- Job roles: Senior, Owner, Manager, Director or above
What we tested
- The sales pitch email to pro-actively encourage people to apply for OM support
- Three different email subject headings:
- Tailored specialist support to develop your business
- Want to get specialist support for your business?
- You may be eligible for specialist business support
Research questions
- Which email subject header do they prefer?
- Do companies understand what it is that we’re offering?
- Is there anything that is confusing or unclear in the pitch?
- Would they be motivated to apply after reading this pitch?
What we discovered
- Most people who viewed the content would be motivated to click ‘Apply’
- All three subject headings received similar scores
- ‘Tailored specialist support for your business’ was voted the mostly likely to make you want to read the rest of the email
- ‘Want to get specialist support for your business?’ was voted most engaging
- Most people find the content clear and easy to understand, but they could use some clarity around:
- Eligibility criteria
- What support is on offer
- How we deliver support
- What our qualifications are
🎧 Quotes
Quote “I’d probably want to find out more any aspects of support I’m most interested in before applying. So a link to the website would be more likely to get a click than the Apply button. I like to do my research first.” “I think it is clear. In my own words, it is you sharing your expertise and experience to help me grow my business, support in making the right decision on what needs done next, support in getting funding and help in networking.” “The bullet points are very clear and simple to understand, it could be a bit more comprehensive and offer examples of what’s on offer. For example, guidance and insights is quite subjective…just go one step further to tell me what’s available.” “It is clear on what the page is offering. Using bullet points makes it a lot easier to read and understand.” “I think there is just enough info on the page to peak my interest, it’s not information overload and it’s all very positive, clear and well laid out!” Supporting documents
- 30 users on UserTesting.com
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Opportunity Management names options testing
Audience and tool used
- 45 users on UserTesting.com (online unmoderated)
- 5 potential customers (face-to-face on Teams)
What we tested
5 potential names:
- Bespoke business support service
- Business Support Service
- Tailored support service
- SE business support service
- Opportunity Management
Results
Face-to-face
- Bespoke business support service
- Business Support Service
- Tailored support service
- SE business support service
- Opportunity Management
UserTesting.com
- Business Support Service
- Bespoke business support service
- Tailored support service
- SE business support service
- Opportunity Management
Recommendations
- Choose a name for customers that says what it does
- Drop Opportunity Management as an external (customer-facing) name
Supporting documents
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Opportunity Management Activity Plan - Customer Research
Phase: Alpha
Audience and tool used
- 7 people from 5 companies that were part of the pilot
What we tested
- The Word document version of the Activity Plan that was used for the OM pilot project
Research questions
- What was their experience of using the activity plan?
- What worked well?
- What didn’t work so well?
- Was there anything missing that they expected to be there?
- What format would they want to receive the plan in?
- How were they being informed/would they want to be informed about updates to the activity plan?
What we discovered
- Companies aren’t that interested in the activity plan
- “I don’t care what’s on a piece of paper.”
- “The activity plan didn’t really register.”
- “The document itself – I never really opened it.”
- The real value for companies is in the conversations they have with us
- It all comes down to the people
🎧 Quotes
Quote “It has made us think about things in a different way.” “It was as if we were interacting with a group of colleagues as a team.” “Your first point of contact has to be really good – if they aren’t then opportunities are missed.” “You have lots of experts but WE need to do the work. This can create more work than it solves.” “If you were not used to SE form filling then it might be tricky. We know the right buzzwords.” Supporting documents
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Opportunity Management Activity Plan - Staff Testing
Phase: Alpha
Audience and tool used
- 6 staff members (4 who were part of the pilot, 2 who weren’t part of the original pilot group)
What we tested
- The Word document version of the Activity Plan that was used for the OM pilot project
Research questions
- What were they trying to achieve with the activity plan?
- What was their experience of using the activity plan?
- What worked well for them?
- What didn’t work so well for them?
- How did they share the activity plan and any updates with customers?
- Did they have to adapt the plan to meet the needs of their project?
- Are there changes that could be made to the plan to make their jobs easier?
What we discovered
- The outcomes and actions section is useful
- The activity plan works better for some types of projects than others
- There is duplication from the EOI
- Businesses are reluctant to sign off on the plans because it’s too much like a contract
- The plan and the wording could be simplified to be more customer-friendly
🎧 Quotes
Quote “It’s more about what they can do for us rather than the other way around.” “It’s hard to get customers to sign it off because there’s no money involved.” “Clients are reluctant to sign off on economic measures because it’s of no benefit to them.” “If we’re dealing with someone and it’s a one-off I can see the benefit – but when will we be doing one-offs?” “The current process doesn’t take our history with the company into account.” Supporting documents
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Opportunity Management service description and enquiry wireframe testing
Audience and tool used
- 5 potential customers (face-to-face on Teams)
What we tested
- The latest OM wireframe
- Scenario: Covid has disrupted your business over the last year, and you are looking for new income streams.You are not sure how to do that and you want us to help you.
What we focused on
- Customer understanding of language
- Happy path customer flow
Results
- The service descriptions have specific issues and this also varies with customer industry
- There was more reticence than last time, over using personal documents (passport, driving license, other)
Supporting documents
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Opportunity Management new process wireframe testing (no Expression of Interest)
Audience and tool used
- 6 potential customers (face-to-face on Teams)
What we tested
Results
- There are two paths that are clear to customers. The text around the ‘Enquire’ path suggests a conversation. When users click through they see a standard Contact Us form and little language to sustain their expectations.
- The ‘Apply’ path does meet expectations
- The form is clean, clear and easy to understand
- The account creation is at the appropriate time in the journey and IS expected
- The document requirements (passport, driving license, other) were acceptable to all participants
Supporting documents
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Opportunity Management sustainability pages - layout and language testing
Audience and tool used
- 4 potential customers using F2F-Video calls (Microsoft Teams)
- 10 UserZoom online unmoderated tests
What we tested
Research questions
- Is there anything that’s unclear or missing?
- Is there anything users would have liked to know more about?
- Is the language clear/do we use any unfamiliar terms?
- Does the splitting over the two pages helpful?
- Is the eligibility criteria clear?
What we discovered
- The language sounds like “management speak”
- “Not everyone who is reading this has been to business school”
- Bullet points could be more concise
- People are very time poor
- Help and support are used interchangeably
- The second page is much clearer
- The language does not really tell businesses “what’s in it for them”
- There were no strong feelings about the two page layout
- The eligibility and required outcomes were fairly clear
Supporting documents
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Opportunity Management Proposal Wireframe Testing
Phase: Alpha
Audience and tool used
- 6 potential customers, all SMEs
- Using video calls (Teams)
Focus
- We tested the latest service proposal and we asked them to act as a company that wanted to reduce heating costs and lower carbon emissions, and protect jobs in the process of reducing costs
What we discovered
- The content worked well
- Customers wanted a list of required info in order to prepare themselves
- Customers would appreciate an example project description to give them some idea how to structure theirs
- Customers are uncertain about what our help will cost
- The language presupposes a fully formed and costed Project. Many are at an earlier stage and may still be thinking in terms of problems and challenges
🎧 Quotes
Quote “Because it’s boxes it looks fairly simple to understand.” “I like the idea of one-to-one support.” “How tailored would this support be?” “I want to see an example of a project.” Supporting documents
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Proposition & Activity Plan testing
Phase: Alpha
Audience and tool used
- Customers via Video Call & Desktop Sharing
Focus
- Have customers review Prototype of OM Proposition and Activity plan
What we discovered
Proposition
- The Proposition was quite well received
- Some slight tweaks are required to the reading order of the content
Activity Plan
- The activity plan made sense
- Focusing on “Issues” rather than “Sectors” was well received
- Having “Top 3 Priorities” sounded a bit “Box Ticky” and should just be “Top Priorities”
Supporting documents
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Expression of Interest (EOI) V3 Testing
Phase: Discovery
Audience and tool used
- Unmoderated testing on UserZoom with 10 people in Scotland who are business owners or decision makers
- This included a Survey Monkey version with a web page intro
Research questions
- Does having the form as a Survey Monkey improve its usability and ease of use?
What we discovered
- People were jarred by moving from a web page off to a SurveyMonkey without being explicitly informed what was about to happen
- But general usability was not impaired
Supporting documents
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Expression of Interest (EOI) V2 Testing
Phase: Discovery
Audience and tool used
- Unmoderated testing on UserZoom with 10 people in Scotland who are business owners or decision makers
- We tested a Word document version and a web version
Hypotheses
- People will welcome the Expression of Interest approach
- The form will make sense and be easy to use
What we discovered
People will welcome the Expression of Interest approach
- The online solution scores better than the word document BUT people want to be able to save their data
The form will make sense and be easy to use
- The form makes overall sense
- People conflate EOI and pre-qualification
- The ability to save progress is valued
Supporting documents
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Expression of Interest (EOI) V1 Testing
Phase: Discovery
Audience and tool used
- Unmoderated testing on UserZoom with people in Scotland who are business owners or decision makers
Hypotheses
- People will welcome the Expression of Interest approach
- The form will make sense and be easy to use
What we discovered
People will welcome the Expression of Interest approach
- People understand the benefits of the approach
- They think it will save them time in the long run
- Expect to not have to resubmit the same information again
BUT
- Would rather have a quick online solution that gives an immediate answer
- Have a solution that can be left and returned to with their data still saved
The form will make sense and be easy to use
- Most of the sections of the form were clear, but there is room for improvement, particularly in the project information and outcomes sections
Supporting documents