Challenges & solutions for UX research in a B2B environment — Part 1
Learnings and tips after 6 months working in a fast growing company and starting its UXR team from scratch
After 6 months working in a B2B UX design team of a fast growing company like Glovo, I feel able to list the main difficulties (and learnings, and recommendations) we have encountered along the way. This is the first article of a series of two, and you can find the second one in this link.
For those who are not familiar with Glovo, this is a company that started as a startup in the delivery market in 2014 and currently is present in 20 countries, more than 140 cities and works with a total of 90 thousand stores and restaurants worldwide. These stores and restaurants are called Glovo Partners and are the users of the research team to which I belong. I need to point out that the design & research team that works for the UX of Partners is taking baby steps as it was established back in September 2020 and now it is growing (if you know what I mean 😉).
We know that UX research in B2B in general tends to be a difficult and complex environment, as Nielsen said back in 2006, and I admit the solutions and recommendations I am sharing might seem pretty obvious if you are a senior researcher, but as basic as they may be, they are very useful when starting a team and processes from scratch. Without further ado, these are some of the main challenges we have encountered in these months of working in the delivery market in particular.
Challenge 1: Multiple user profiles
Glovo’s mission is to give everyone easy access to anything in their city. I emphasize “anything” because it represents what is perhaps the biggest challenge for my team: any store that sells items that fit in a rider’s backpack is a potential partner for Glovo. So far the main types of stores are supermarkets, pharmacies, bookstores, gift stores and, of course, restaurants, all with different characteristics, contexts and needs, but with the same objective: to sell products.
How we face this challenge:
Understanding the context: the lack of knowledge about the context directly impacts efficiency in the project definition, so as a new team we are putting a lot of effort into understanding the environment we are working in and the main characteristics and differences of the user profiles mentioned (have you heard about Personas? 😉), so that the upcoming projects can be defined and started more efficiently.
My suggestion:
My recommendation is that in every interview you conduct or survey you send to your users, you always ask 2 or 3 questions about their context: how many people are working there, profiles involved, main tasks, workflows, bad experiences with their customers and with your product, etc. This way you are going to gradually build your own Personas, project after project, in a lean way, instead of investing a lot of time in getting them done and being a blocker for the projects you must run.
Challenge 2: Multiple segments
An extra layer of difficulty in defining our user profiles is added by the segmentation by which stores are classified. For example, in the ‘food’ category we count big chains, chains, local restaurants that are very successful in the neighborhood where they are located, and also any small restaurant in any city where the company is present. Each of these segments has special characteristics and particular needs that we are gradually getting to know.
It is important to define the user segment that is most appropriate for the project, knowing that the process should be iterative and in future rounds you will be able to include others in it.
How we face this challenge:
Defining the project as narrowly as possible. Being flexible to the possibility of pivoting (you know, things rarely go as expected), we define the problem to be solved, the deadline, the objectives and, of course, the user segment that is most appropriate for the project, knowing that the process should be iterative and in future rounds we will be able to include others in it.
My suggestion:
After the projects to be addressed during the quarter or semester are defined and prioritized, my tip is having a kickoff meeting with the main stakeholders of each project (usually the PM and/or the Engineering Manager) to know the scope, the impact the project will have in terms of business, development and design, and what the team needs to learn from research. By defining these points, the answer about what segment is the most appropriate should arise.
Challenge 3: Always hectic environment
For a UX researcher to be in contact with our users is vital to know their characteristics and needs, but in a delivery environment this need is particularly challenging because people working at stores are busy all the time. If we think of restaurants, for example, we can visualize big chains having many orders in a short time and small restaurants having few people managing many things at the same time. For them it is hard to find a time to attend to someone who comes to ask questions and, therefore, the ratio of last minute cancellations is quite high.
We need users to be part of a community with which to solve exploration and validation problems as quickly as possible.
How we face this challenge:
Finding good incentives: as Sol Degl’innocenti -Design & UXR Lead of Content & Partners in Glovo- points out in her article, a big step forward in consolidating any user research process is to find ways to incentivize those users to be part of a community of people with whom to solve exploration and validation problems as quickly as possible, which directly will also help improve the recruitment process that is so difficult. Just as I mentioned that our partners work in a hectic environment, I also have to say that we are very surprised by the positive disposition of the people we contact. In their own words, they see the value of being part of a community that works to help improve their business.
My suggestion:
My recommendation is iterating and trying to test different incentives in each project, whose ideas can come from the users themselves if you take advantage of being in front of them and ask what would motivate them to be part of the community. To solve the issue of last minute cancellations, I recommend sending emails two or three days before the interview and the same day a couple of hours before as friendly reminders.
These are the first 3 challenges that I have encountered in these months working in the B2B UX research team at Glovo, although it does not mean that they are the most important or the most difficult ones.
The second part of this series describes the other 3 main challenges I have encountered so far along the way, which have to do with Glovo’s internal user profiles, the fact that the company is international and how difficult the recruiting process is. You can find the second part here.
Thanks a lot for reading.
