"Lackluster Learning"
DATA ANALYSIS • PERSONA CREATION • UX AUDIT • CONTENT
Company Background:
Classroom Training is a paid service offered by HubSpot that provides live trainings to users in a digital, instructor-led, interactive environment. There are three courses offered by Classroom training: Marketing Hub Fundamentals, Sales Hub Fundamentals, and Sales & Marketing Alignment.
Problem Statement
Users who attended the Sales Hub Fundamentals (SHF) training are dissatisfied with the course and unlikely to recommend it to others.
RESEARCH
To more clearly identify the problem, I reviewed qualitative and quantitative feedback data from customers who attended Classroom Training events in the past year. My goal was to assess the significance of the problem and what the main motivators were
Quantitative Data
NPS ratings for HubSpot SHF Course
The NPS rating for the SHF course has been consistently poor, and that it has historically trended much lower than both other courses. This confirmed that the negative feedback was not related to any recent changes (such as going fully digital after COVID) or any aspects that would impact multiple courses (such as the technology, the environment, or the trainers.)
Qualitative Data
Written feedback for HubSpot SHF Course
Too Many Targets
Users reported that the content was not aligned with the needs and interests related to their type of role. They reported that the course seemed like it was trying to appeal to Sales Reps, Sales Management, and Sales Admin all at once, which resulted in the content frequently being irrelevant.
“There was a mix of subject matter seemingly targeted for sales and some for management."
“... afternoon was more geared towards Sales than Sales OPs."
"The training also was not geared for users Vs Admins - The Sales Users on the call will not be adjusting Sales stages or percentages."
Inconsistent Agenda
Several users reported receiving more benefit from either the first or second half of the training. It seems likely the content in the 1st vs 2nd half may have a different target, but also seems to indicate that users do not have accurate expectations on what topics will be covered.
“The second half was much more in line with our current needs."
“The second half was very unproductive."
"Morning session was great."
"The morning session was not really beneficial."
PERSONA CREATION
To address the feedback related to the training not being consistently relevant to the same user, I leveraged feedback from customers and information from the Classroom Training team to categories the different personas that have been attending the Sales Hub training. This information would allow us to more clearly understand what each persona needs and why the course is not aligning with their expectations.
Personas
HUBSPOT SALES HUB USERS
Rep Ryan
Director Debbie
IT Isaac
Company Journey
HUBSPOT SALES HUB USERS
Since these personas engage with their HubSpot portal at different times, we outlined a new company journey to show when each would appear and what type of content would be relevant at that point.
In the "SETUP" stages, IT Ivan organizes/migrates the data in the system. Then, Director Debbie configures processes for how her team will ultimately use the platform.
Once setup is done, the company is in the "UTILIZE" stages. There, Rep Ryan works his leads according to the processes in place. Director Debbie is still involved, managing her team, reporting on progress, and making strategic decisions to maximize results.
UX AUDIT
I analyzed the SHF Agenda and content to find a correlation to persona/journey that might explain the negative user feedback. I also looked at the SHF course description to consider what expectations are being set when users sign up for the course.
Agenda by Persona
By comparing the content to the interests of the persona, we can clearly see inconsistencies. While all personas may find parts of the training useful, no persona finds the entire training useful. There is also a heavier weight to the Director Debbie persona in the beginning vs Rep Ryan in the end, which may contribute to the AM/PM feedback discrepancies. IT Isaac would find the least relevance among the 3 personas.
Agenda by Journey Stage
We categorized the agenda items as either "SETUP" or "UTILIZE" (Item 4, "logging activities", involved both setup and utilization.) This categorization reveals a clear AM/PM shift, which is likely reflective of the feedback. While it makes sense for a course to cover setup items before utilize items, this doesn't necessarily align with the needs of the individuals attending training -- they may already be setup in the platform (preferring PM) or may already be using the platform but with improper setup (preferring AM).
Course Description
The course description appears to be leaning towards the Director Debbie persona the most, which makes sense as she had the most value out of the course, but it is not very clear on the specific content of the training.
SOLUTIONS
Based on the problems uncovered in the research phase and the audit, we created solutions to better align course content with the right persona at the right stage of their journey.
Short-Term Solution
REVISED WEBSITE DESCRIPTION
BEFORE
AFTER
More Aligned Expectations
After revising the website description to more specifically represent the actual content of the SHF, we saw a significant increase in the percentage of promoters in feedback surveys. We still saw comments that expressed desire for different/more aligned content, but the overall mood of individuals seems improved because they were not surprised by the course content on the day of training.
Long-Term Solution
REVISED TRAINING OPTIONS
Divide SHF into Multiple Courses
The SHF course is not delivering a good experience because it is trying to solve for multiple personas and multiple journey stages within a single training. We plan to replace the SHF course with 4 courses that are specialized to each persona. Since Director Debbie is involved in both Setup & Utilize stages, we will provide her with 2 courses so that she can attend one or both depending on where she is in her journey.