User Research and Course Outline Design
Sellit (Serhant-owned) was looking to offer more pointed educational offerings for their customers. Their need was two-fold: firstly, to validate some hypotheses on their customer pain points. Secondly, to formulate educational products/packages based on those insights.
O V E R V I E W
Role
I conducted in-depth user-research interviews, analyzed customer calls and synthesized insights into possible offerings for their audience of real-estate companies and agents.
Objectives
Validate that Sellit’s theories on customer pain points
Outline possible course offerings based on my analysis
Business Outcomes & Impact
Sellit brought my findings to an executive meeting and confirmed that their pain points matched with what I had discovered during my research.
They were able to use my proposed solutions as a blueprint for their current Educational product offerings.
D E S I G N P R I N C I P L E S
Vary Data Sources
Customers often differ in what they say they want vs. what they actually buy. As such I didn’t just rely on sales calls, I conducted research with agents who were in the field and former Sellit program customers.
Pain-Centered
My suggested solutions had to be painkillers instead of vitamins, not just in topic but in format as well.
Scalable and Low Cost
While assigning an experienced agent as a coach to every customer would be ideal, it just wouldn’t be feasible from a cost point of view. The solutions had to be easily scalable, with judicious use of resources.
P R O C E S S
Getting Up to Speed on User Pain Points
I conducted 5 in-depth user-research interviews, mined 10 customer calls for powerful insights.
Analysis and Synthesis of Insights
I extracted the data into key findings, carefully choosing the top five painkillers for customers. I supplemented this analysis with an AI-generated report that one of Sellit’s employees created by running a few customer calls into the Knowlege Base.
Generation of Educational Offerings
Examining the pain points, it was clear that the offerings needed to be separated into 2 groups of real-estate learners since they interacted with these pain points differently: individual agents and those in leadership positions. I then designed the offerings with the following parameters in mind:
Learning theory of constructivism (where participants learn through experimentation, reflection and collaboration rather than be passive listeners).
Real-Estate is a job with a lot of human interaction, proposing offerings that have agents practicing daily skills needed was going to be more effective than strictly giving “insider tips”.
Time-bound
Giving learners a time-bound course that moved them through different stages instead of a “library of content” would provide structure and accountability.
Optional External Guidance
Members of Sellit’s existing offerings already had access to an exclusive Slack Channel and Network that allowed for learning from others. Given that 1:1 coaching might be cost prohibitive for the company and that not all learners would need it, it remained optional.
Delivery
I curated this information in an on-brand deck which they were able to use as an internal template for future presentations if needed.
Samples from Final Deliverable
