Mobile Add-On Strategy

Role: Product Designer
Creative Direction: Salesforce Inbox Design Team

The Mobile Add-On Strategy was a collaborative partnership between Sales Cloud and external teams from both Google and Microsoft. Sales Cloud worked with both partners in defining and presenting working POC experiences utilizing their respective mobile add-on frameworks.

While this work only amounted to exploratory POCs, this work was influential in that it acted as a major steel thread (similar to Inbox Now) in the future mobile strategies for Sales Cloud.

Salesforce Inbox is a suite of mobile and desktop productivity apps that bring email, calendar, and Salesforce integration together to help sales reps sell smarter.

Salesforce Inbox aims to be an integral tool to increase the productivity and efficiency of its users. The Inbox mobile app surfaces relevant Salesforce information in your email, providing a level of context of your customer interactions. It also offers a collection of productivity tools that help take care of the daily busy work that sales reps encounter.

The challenges at scale

While the Salesforce Inbox Mobile App was Sales Cloud’s premier mobile sales solution, truth be told, the app had some long-standing complications – particularly in supporting enterprise scale customers.

Sales reps and their teams have already been set up in Gmail or Outlook and that’s where they work. Selling them on the Inbox Mobile App was a tough ask as the security and infrastructure was not optimized for enterprise-level customers.
Google and Microsoft were increasingly commoditizing what we defined as premium features, neutralizing any differentiation that Inbox Mobile might have.

The working team was at an impass – continue trying to fight a never-ending, uphill battle with Gmail and Outlook OR let them be that system of engagement and build our core features within them.

How might we engage customers where they are already working with CRM-powered email and calendar?

What are Add-On's?

Add-Ons are integrations that bring Salesforce functionality to partner applications. The focus of this strategic initiative was to envision what a mail and calendar-focused Salesforce experience would be like within the Gmail and Outlook mobile apps.

The value and opportunities of investing in Add-On’s

The key value prop of Salesforce partnering with Google and Microsoft and investing in Add-On’s is that it would bring a Salesforce presence directly to our customers – in the context of where they already live and work. This would allow users to complete critical tasks and key workflows directly from their inbox & calendar client without having to context switch between apps.

Access

Easier to access on-the-go because we are in the app the user actually uses

Adoption

Natural boost in terms of adoption and Net Promoter Score

Usage = More Data

Dramatic increase in data ingestion to the CRM

Increased Value

Increases the value of our premium SKUs & recommendation-heavy products

Defining the core experience with partners

With buy-in from Sales Cloud leadership, the working team began discussions with both the Gmail and Outlook add-on framework teams. The working team collaborated with each external partner to understand the state of capabilities of their add-on frameworks and identify mutually beneficial opportunities.

Working with Product, I helped define and proactively presented a phased breakdown of the mobile experience to the respective Gmail and Outlook teams. These presentations outlined what we determined were the table stakes of the core experience.

Related CRM Record Display

Logging an Email to Relevant Salesforce Records

In addition to defining the P0 parts of the experience, I worked with Product to present an interative approach that layered additional functionality over the core MVP experience that our team would prioritize in phases.

Record Creation

Record Detail

Addressing issues and partnering on goals

As we did not own the space, our primary goal was to drive engagement to our add-on to tap into the user base within Gmail and Outlook. To make sure that Salesforce's needs were being considered, I identified and drove discussions related to experience gaps within the respective add-on experience frameworks for each partner.

Discoverability

Add-On visibility and discoverability

Presence

Opportunities to pursue higher, non-contextual entrypoints

Integration

Integration within other areas of Gmail/Outlook mobile apps

Education

Support for coaching experience within our add-on experience

Discussions related to these experience gaps provided opportunities to present and influence thinking to define goals that were mutually beneficial for both Salesforce and the external partner.