GlobalMeet Add-In

GlobalMeet’s product suite included a tiny powerhouse in the Outlook Add-In, it had the highest user engagement and the lowest company investment. Customers were burdened to be “in the know” in order to discover and install the product.

We want to show our customers that we are confident in our Add-In and know the value it brings them. Having the Add-In discoverable and downloadable through the Microsoft store shows our customers that we are energetic to share our Add-In with them and confident in the value we bring them through this product. It will be the first time we market ourselves with this product and will reinforce that we are a trusted leader in the collaboration space and proud to offer this product.

Objective: Update the GlobalMeet Add-In to submit it for inclusion in the Microsoft Add-In store:

• Address the issues around discovery

• Resolve the confusion and drop off rate with the install process

• Streamline the services offered in the product

• Update the branding to match the rest of the GlobalMeet product suite

Team: This project was not officially on any of our workstream’s roadmaps. A group of passionate people teamed up outside our primary responsibilities to bring this to life because we believed in the value it would bring.

• Product Owner: Cheryl

• Design Director: Rishi 

• Product (UX/UI) Designer: Me!

• Software Engineer: Charles

My Role: As the Product Designer, my first step was to audit the product, mapping all of its included features and each step of the lengthy discovery and installation process. 

Themes of the audit: 

1. Lack of Discoverability 

2. Numerous Risk Areas During Install Process

3. Confused Purpose

The biggest issue discovered was with the install process— should a customer miss out on small text in their welcome email, they’d need to be hunting for install instructions buried on the help section of PGi’s website to find a custom set up link and follow a multi-page document with a 14 step process. There were plenty of spots where customers were at risk of not completing the installation, largely due to the nature of switching between several applications to accomplish the task. 

Following the audit, I presented recommendations to the team and we made two key decisions:

1. To address the discovery and installation issues, we would update the add-in in accordance with Microsoft's guidelines and submit it for inclusion in the store. Which would make it easy to link to from our downloads page, search in the Microsoft store, and allow a one-click install process to take place.

2. To address the product’s confused purpose, we needed to clean up the site map and reduce the multiple paths to the included 8 features. We defined the MVP for store submission to focus around Scheduling a Meeting and include simplified versions of settings, support, and about. We would defer or deprecate the remaining features. This clarified the product’s purpose as a scheduling application. 

The scope of the design was to refresh pages included in the Add-In but did not extend to the email templates generated by the actions in the Add-In. I applied GlobalMeet’s new brand guidelines to all pages, and created a net new landing screen for the application that included our value proposition as a tool to help customers schedule meetings. Toward the end of the project, we added a “sign up for free” option under the sign in button, thinking that a possible bonus of the Add-In being more discoverable might be that we could use it to market our products and generate leads for new customers.

Conclusion: We successfully submitted the Add-In to the Microsoft Store, clarifying the product’s purpose in the process. Customers were able to find and easily install our product and we were able to reinforce our reputation as communication solutions leaders. Our small but mighty team was considered for an internal company award for taking on this “after hours” challenge and improving our customer experience while living out our brand values.

• Energetic – Positioning who we are and how customers can get a free account and why that would be valuable for them

• Confident – We know the add-in will benefit our customers and we are using this screen to explain the exact value it brings them

• Collaborative – Our customers spend so much of their day in the calendar (Microsoft Outlook) and we are showing that we are collaborative by creating products that integrate with the other productivity apps they already use (Microsoft Outlook)

• Trusted – This is the first time we have marketed ourselves through the add-in. Leveraging our reputation as established industry leaders in collaboration and communication solutions and showcasing it through this product.