Improving Lead Management Post-Merger
Following Seequent’s merger with Bentley Systems, a major transition was set in motion: the company planned to sunset Microsoft Dynamics in favor of Salesforce Lightning as its primary CRM and lead management tool. While this shift aimed to streamline sales operations, it also revealed significant gaps in lead acquisition and success measurement—key issues identified through our previous Bow Tie Funnel & North Star Metrics initiative.
Key Challenge: The existing CRM workflows did not align with actual sales processes across different global markets, leading to inconsistencies in how leads were captured, nurtured, and measured. Our goal was to improve CRM usability, enhance lead tracking accuracy, and align sales performance metrics with our overarching business strategy.
Phase 1: Identifying the Gaps in Lead Management
🔍 Leveraging the Bow Tie & North Star Framework
- As part of our broader North Star Metrics initiative, we had already identified that the company lacked a cohesive framework for tracking lead success.
- Existing KPIs were inconsistent across regions, making it difficult to assess which sales tactics were truly driving engagement and conversions.
- Sales teams across different territories were using different lead qualification criteria, creating a fragmented view of sales funnel performance.
Key Issues Identified:
- Lack of Global Alignment – Different sales teams defined and tracked leads differently, making data unreliable for strategic decision-making.
- Over-Reliance on Vanity Metrics – Lead tracking focused on quantities over quality, meaning teams often chased high-volume, low-value leads.
- CRM Complexity & Usability Issues – Microsoft Dynamics workflows were cumbersome, leading to manual workarounds and inefficiencies.
- Disjointed Data Flow – Critical handoff points between Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success teams were not well-defined, leading to missed opportunities.
Phase 2: Conducting Global UX Research
Research Strategy: We planned and executed user research with sales teams globally, ensuring we gathered diverse perspectives from:
- EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa)
- NAM (North America)
- LAM (Latin America)
- APAC (Asia-Pacific)
Research Methods:
- Semi-structured interviews with Sales and Customer Success teams across all regions
- Field studies & contextual inquiry to observe how teams used Microsoft Dynamics in their day-to-day workflows.
- Heuristic evaluation of existing CRM processes, mapping out pain points.
- Surveys to capture broader feedback on CRM challenges and lead tracking needs.
- Data analysis of existing CRM usage patterns to identify trends in lead conversion and pipeline leakage.
Key Insights from Research:
- Regional Differences in Lead Handling – Some regions followed rigid qualification steps, while others had ad hoc, intuition-based processes.
- Manual Workarounds Were Common – Due to clunky UI and missing fields, sales teams in multiple regions created shadow workflows outside the CRM.
- Lack of Visibility into Lead Journey – Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success teams struggled with hand-offs and accountability gaps.
- Sales Teams Wanted Simplicity – Users overwhelmingly preferred streamlined, automated workflows rather than complex, rigid processes.
Phase 3: Co-Designing the New CRM Workflow
With these insights in hand, we conducted a series of co-design workshops to develop an improved lead management framework within Salesforce Lightning.
Workshop Approach:
- Cross-functional collaboration – Included stakeholders from Sales, Marketing and Customer Success.
- User journey mapping – Outlined ideal lead flows from initial contact to closed deal.
- Interactive prototyping – Used Figma to mock up potential Salesforce workflows and validate them with sales reps.
- Prioritisation matrix – Ranked feature enhancements based on impact vs. effort, ensuring we focused on the highest-value improvements.
Outcomes of the Workshops:
✔ Unified Lead Scoring Model – Developed a global, standardised lead qualification framework to be embedded within Salesforce.
✔ Streamlined Data Capture – Simplified UI components to reduce manual data entry and automate lead enrichment.
✔ Clearer Cross-Team Hand-offs – Introduced a visual pipeline tracker, making lead status and ownership transparent across teams.
✔ Integrated Success Metrics – Aligned CRM dashboards with the North Star Constellation, ensuring sales teams tracked leading indicators of deal success.
Final Implementation & Impact
Post-Launch Benefits: 🚀 40% reduction in manual data entry, improving efficiency for sales teams.
Increased lead conversion rates by 18%, thanks to better qualification criteria.
Salesforce Lightning adoption improved across all regions, reducing reliance on outdated workarounds.
Improved reporting accuracy, allowing leadership to track early indicators of revenue growth instead of just lagging revenue figures.
Global Impact:
- EMEA & NAM teams saw increased efficiency with standardized lead qualification.
- LAM & APAC teams gained better visibility into their pipeline and improved follow-up strategies.
- Leadership gained a unified, actionable view of sales funnel performance for the first time.
How This Ties Back to the Bow Tie Funnel
This project wasn’t just about improving CRM usability—it was a critical piece of our larger Bow Tie Funnel & North Star initiative. By aligning lead tracking, qualification, and success metrics with our North Star Constellation, we:
- Ensured that lead acquisition became a leading indicator of revenue, not just a retrospective data point.
- Created a customer-centered approach to sales that mirrored our user experience efforts in product development.
- Reinforced our product-led growth strategy, ensuring that every team (Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success) was aligned in delivering customer value.
Final Takeaways & Lessons Learned
- UX Research is Business Strategy – This project reinforced that great UX isn’t just for product design; it’s essential for internal tools and workflows too.
- Collaboration Beats Silos – Bringing together sales, marketing, and product teams created a more holistic approach to CRM design.
- Customer-Centered Sales – Aligning CRM processes with customer needs, not just internal KPIs, led to stronger relationships and higher conversion rates.
By embedding UX research into our CRM transition, we transformed a technical migration into a strategic opportunity—aligning teams, improving efficiency, and reinforcing our commitment to a product-led, customer-centric approach.
- Date: February 6, 2025
- Categories: Customer ExperienceUser ExperienceUser Research
- Company Seequent
- Role Lead Design