B2B Case Study:
Workflow Optimization &
Conversion Generation
200% growth in average conversions
Advanced Geosciences, Inc.
My Contributions:
Marketing Strategy
Customer Experience Design
Creative Direction & Graphic Design
Copy Writing
Event Coordination
The Team:
COO
1 Controller
1 Senior Geophysicists
1 Salesperson
1 Event Coordinator
Tools:
Adobe Creative Cloud
HubSpot
Zapier
GSuite
Stripe
The problem
The company held two annual seminars to provide valuable information and hands-on training on using its highly technical equipment. The goal was to reduce the time spent troubleshooting for clients in the field, thereby reducing the burden on the support team—which also served as the sales team.
On average, each employee handles 3.75 support calls daily, totaling 18.75 hours per week. For five employees, this totals $594,000 a year wasted on support calls, not to mention the mutual stress inherent in customer service calls.
The seminars had little impact, with only 5 to 9 attendees per event. By diverting employees to host the seminars, the company failed to see a return and wasted significant time and money, highlighting the need for a more effective client support strategy.
Seminar groups were small enough to fit in the company’s meeting room.
The approach
After conducting an audit of the registration process with the COO, we identified the main issue as several points of friction both internally and for clients.
The internal process was too manual and required unnecessary coordination internally and externally. The internal team was caught in a cycle in which they spent too much time handling sales and support to facilitate the registration pipeline. The solution to this problem was clear...
Acquisition = Communication + Automation
Point of friction: Internal Bottlenecks
The company faced delays due to the involvement of too many people. But with the help of HubSpot’s automation, we coordinated better among everyone involved. The CRM allowed us to automate steps that previously required manual hand-offs and customer correspondence. As a result, some employees’ roles were phased out of the process, freeing up more time to handle their regular duties.
Point of friction: Enigmatic details
In the past, the company invited clients to its seminars through a single email and did not follow up. This approach limited the number of registrants that could be reached. To improve customer outreach, I revamped the system by scheduling multiple automatic email invitations and social media posts to attract more registrations and expand the audience to include prospects and academics.
To empower the audience to make informed decisions, I designed a landing page that contained all the necessary information about the seminar, including pricing and benefits. The landing page also featured a registration form that registrants could fill out to sign up for the seminar.
Point of friction: Inconsistent communication during the process.
I minimized handholding throughout the process by designing a workflow in HubSpot that automatically sent emails that were clear about the customer’s next steps—which resulted in less downtime throughout the journey.
Challenges
During the process, one of the major challenges was the payment system. Instead of sending invoices to customers, I created a Stripe account for instant payments to simplify the process. To set up an account and payment page, I quickly learned how Stripe worked.
I worked closely with the company’s Controller to ensure that the new workflow would provide seamless transactions without disrupting the accounting team’s normal business practices.
Open communication with the lead event coordinator helped manage the budget and meet the guests' needs despite the limited timeframe.
Compared to customers who don't attend seminars, those who do are 94% less likely to contact customer support while in the field.
Results & Learnings
Since implementing this strategy in 2019, the company has seen a noticeable growth in seminar attendees.
Before I implemented my strategy, the average guest count per seminar was 6. The average is now 18—a 200% increase.
Pre-2019, the highest-performing seminar achieved 13 guests. The highest-performing seminar after the change was 29 guests.
*Although the March 2020 guest list was finalized, the seminar was canceled due to Covid-19
The number of support calls has been trending downward since 2019. As clients' work is quite complex, support queries can take anywhere from a few hours to several days to resolve.
Although the technology is very advanced, a knowledgeable user can take a systematic approach. Thus, providing hands-on training during seminars has become a crucial tool to help users feel confident in operating the system and become less reliant on customer support.
As the saying goes: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
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