Onboarding project | Sellerapp

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Let's Begin

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Product 

The chosen product for this onboarding project is SellerApp’s Quick Commerce solution. It is a data & analytics platform which provides insights to help consumer brands (typically cpg, fmcg, d2c firms) sell better on ‘quick commerce’ platforms (Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart, BB Now). While SellerApp is a 7 yrs old company with an established eCommerce data & analytics product, their ‘quick commerce’ solution is new and in early PMF stage.  

We are in the early months of this new product’s launch, and in discussions with several consumer brands / prospective customers.

SellerApp's Quick Commerce product / solution can help clients in 4 major areas:

1. Availability i.e., whether their products are available or 'out of stock' across QC platforms, cities, pin codes. This data will help brands take action to replenish stock (via the QC category manager) while also informing the company's forecasting and revenue loss analysis
2. ​Assortment i.e. to understand how many of the company's product SKUs are being actively sold across QC platforms, cities, pin codes. This gives brands a sense of what products are resonating with QC consumers across locations (while being able to compare this assortment v/s competitors)
3. Visibility i.e. how their products rank / show up while consumers search on the QC platforms (both for organic and advertised key words). This will help brands better understand the popularity of their products and the effectiveness of their performance marketing strategy / listing details, while informing any competitor benchmarking exercise
4. Pricing & Discounts i.e. how their products are priced across platforms, cities, pincodes. This helps brands understand how QC platforms are pricing their products, if discounts are being applied, whether these numbers are in alignment (with what the QC category manager and brand have agreed), while informing their competitor benchmarking exercise

This data-set above is customised for every client, and is made available on an online dashboard, via downloadable spreadsheets and real-time whatsapp / email / slack alerts.

No major competition exists in the market for this offering. Traditional players (e.g., Xbytes, Pascom) have solutions which don’t provide robust data or visualisation dashboards / reports. (Key context here is that the QC landscape is still evolving in the market).

PS: In my notes below, QC refers to Quick Commerce and eCommerce refers to Amazon / Flipkart.

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Ideal customer profile (ICP)

This is based on observations from 5+ customer / prospect calls.

This is a B2B use case.

ICP prioritisation

Given that we are in PMF stage, we want to prioritise customers who can quickly convert, will frequently use our product, for whom QC is super relevant as a sales channel, can provide detailed feedback, help validate our solution, and are able to pay.

Hence, the attributes that we are looking out for

 Adoption rate – medium / high

Ability to pay -  good / high

Relevance of QC as a sales channel – moderate / high

Frequency of use-case – daily / every other day

Decision making – medium / fast

TAM – medium / high

We will prioritise ICP 1 and ICP 2 for the next 6 months, until we are confident of PMF .

ICP 3 (early stage companies) is not relevant given the relative inability to pay.

ICP 4 is less relevant at this stage (these are larger companies where decision making to sign-up for the product will take long and ideally we want to go to them when the product is sharper and closer to 100% functional).

Define user goals and JTBD

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Who is signing up – <please refer ICP analysis done above>

What are they trying to do – After they sign-up and start using the product, they will log-in to their online dashboard on a regular basis to track the data and derive insights from it. They will also periodically down data reports, for more detailed analysis. Availability is expected to be the most used module, followed by visibility and pricing / competition analysis (please refer the intro sector on this submission, for details on each submission)

Why are they signing up?​

1. Primary goal – Financial: increase product sales / revenues; ensure QC inventory is replenished as soon as it goes out of stock; confirm more purchase-orders from QC platforms; avoid revenue leakage; forecast sales well; plan how to stock-up in a timely manner; strategise where to double down on distribution / sales (which QC platform, cities, pin codes, SKUs)
2. Secondary goal – Functional; move towards an automated data collection process and avoid manual efforts / lookups; be able to monitor and take actions based on reliable and robust data

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Do user research to validate or invalidate these goals

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From multiple prospect and client conversations and analysis of customer usage behaviour (of the product dashboard, utilisation of data / modules, pointed feedback and follow-on information requests), the main validated customers goals are:

• Understand product availability across locations (QC platforms, cities, pin codes)
• Replenish inventory asap by engaging better and influencing QC category managers on this
• Reduce manual efforts (in data collection), derive insights and take action based on regular & reliable data
• Ensure products rank high (show up prominently) during consumer searches on the QC platforms
• Be aware of competition i.e., product range, pricing & discounts, visibility, distribution spread

Features/modules that appear to resonate less for now are; a) assortment, b) pricing / discounts. Reasons range from;

• Prioritisation of top-line growth over other needs (to begin with)
• Irrelevance of certain data & insights from an actionability standpoint e.g., can't influence QC category managers beyond a point

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Onboarding Teardown

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This is a B2B use-case. We are at early PMF stage with this product hence the prospecting exercise is via automated drip feed emails (getting contacts from Apollo for companies in our wish-list), reach-outs using personal networks, and via content on LinkedIn and otherwise.

Outreach E-mail sample:

LinkedIn content sample:

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The onboarding teardown is being done for the steps (below) that come after the outreach above i.e., when specific targeted companies / brands have expressed an interest in talking to us:

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Step 1 → An introductory call is setup with the company (hosted by SellerApp's founder and QC solution lead). This call usually starts with ice-breaking, introductions on both sides, followed by an introduction to SellerApp as a company and then the QC proposition in detail (the latter is done via slides, followed by a demo of the dashboard using dummy data)

Step 2 → If the company expresses an interest to continue the engagement, the next step is a follow-on 30 minute call after 2-3 days where a demo of the dashboard and the reports are done using this specific company's data

Step 3 → If the company expresses an interest to proceed further, a discussion is held over emails and calls to agree the scope of work; coverage locations (QC platforms, cities, pin codes), SKU #'s, modules of interest (availability, assortment, visibility, pricing), frequency of reporting / data pulls, user #'s etc.

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Step 4 → A copy of the sales contract and invoice is shared for final negotiation and agreement.

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Step 5 → On signing the contract and acceptance of the invoice, the onboarding process commences. We request data from the company; daily revenue reports provided by each QC platform (for last 3 months), SKU ids etc. The SellerApp technical team will setup the data and access for the company. A training and go-live call is then setup within a week

Step 6 → There are weekly check-ins with the new client, to ensure sufficient hand-holding is provided. Besides this call, given we are in the early PMF phase, the QC solution lead's contact details are also shared for ad-hoc discussions and queries

Detailed analysis of individual steps - what happens today, what improvements can be made

Step 1

1. During the introductions from SellerApp, it is important to provide the company confidence that SellerApp can deliver. Building trust is key for this from the get-go (we are data & analytics company!), and in a space like this trust comes from the quality and usability of data & insights that the product can deliver. To that extent, it is important that the call hosts are well prepared on the prospect's business, product line-up and presence on QC platforms (based on what they can see e.g, current availability, page ranking, out-of-stock status, names of key competitors etc.)
2. Following this introduction from SellerApp call hosts, it is important to let the company / prospect talk about their proposition, specifically w.r.t QC - sales splits, growth trends, challenges, current data / performance monitoring process, roadmap, ambitions on QC etc. It is important to let the company describe in detail, and use this opportunity to probe
3. SellerApp introduction is being done using the slides below:

These slides intend to provide perspective on SellerApp as a company and its journey till date i.e. from being an established and leading data & analytics provider on Amazon, Walmart, Flipkart, to one of the earliest players on ONDC, to now the first & best proposition provider for QC.

These slides are a bit verbose and inconsistent. My suggestion would be to combine these two slides into one (for the sake of simplicity).

Top half can talk about; SellerApp's journey from 2017, the fact that it is used by 30k+ sellers on eCommerce platforms, has direct access to Amazon / FK APIs, and has FK as an investor

Bottom half could show the proposition evolution i.e.

from eCommerce marketplaces -> ONDC -> QC.

Currently the design is inconsistent as some columns (marketplace and QC) show platform logos at the bottom while ONDC shows brand logos. This should be corrected, as the audience may be confused (some companies are still trying to grasp what SellerApp does, and why they can be trusted). The final column (SellMetric) can be taken out in my opinion, and if needed can be covered in the verbal narrative (that we also have a separate omnichannel proposition for large enterprises).

The next two slides (below) go into the QC proposition:

The flow of conversation (with these slides) is designed to be such that

1. We confirm first that these are the typical questions companies have today for products being sold on QC
2. And then if so, the solutions that we can offer to find reasonable responses

In my view, while slide 1 (questions) is appropriate, slide 2 (solutions) is positioned like a 'this is what we sell' rather than 'this is how we solve'.

Instead, an approach for the second slide could be to use the test from the first slide and add a column next to it - with each row indicating the solution for that question (that SellerApp can provide) and the specific product module (Availability, Assortment, Visibility, Pricing) designed for it. This type of representation may help land the message in a comprehensive manner and be easier for the speakers to talk to.

This could also enable a neat transition into the individual modules that form part of the dashboard demo (seescreenshots below):

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​Step 2

By now, the client has clearly expressed an interest in the proposition and is excited to see their live data on a dashboard. Currently, to convert quickly, we are rushing into this exercise and doing the follow-on call in a couple of days with limited prep.

Sample screenshots used for this real-data demo are shown below:

My view here is that we need to be super prepped ahead of this call on the data points, and call out specific insights / actions for the client (create FOMO, on what they could have done if they had this with them today).

This would bring a lot of confidence to the client / company, and demonstrate the usefulness of this product.

Also, while showing all the modules (in a 30-min window), the priority should be on the ones (e.g., availability, visibility) that resonate most with this company (based on what we know from the first call). Other modules / features (e.g., assortment) can be shown as complementary with less time spent.

It is also important to confirm / validate as we go along to ensure that the message, insights are landing.

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Step 3-6:

While we are building the onboarding process as we go, we need to ensure the following;

• A clear playbook to follow for each implementation from contract signing to product onboarding. Iterate and edit based on learnings from each onboarding
• Weekly (or more frequent) check-ins, with an agenda, to ensure that the client is using the data and insights the right way (are they getting the value we have delivered?)
• Steps like invoicing, payments, billing setups need to be smoothened out to ensure that this doesn't take away from the product experience
• A named contact from SellerApp to be available for post-implementation queries
• Client check-ins should be an opportunity to also find out; what they like, what they don't like, and what else would be on their wish-list with this proposition (this will help us iteratively improve our product for large scale distribution)

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Defining your Activation Metric

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Activation metrics

1. Logging into dashboard and checking 'availability' module every other day
2. Checking other modules (e.g., visibility, pricing) once a week
3. Downloading detailed data spreadsheets once a week
4. Client being expressive (regarding data, product, goods / bads) during the weekly checkin
5. Confirmed renewal

These metrics will ensure that,

1) The client is using the dashboard and reports on a regular basis and that these are adding value to their business. Drop offs will indicate that they are not getting the desired benefits

2) A highly interactive weekly check-in call will indicate that the client is fully engaged with the product and constantly using it

3) Renewal is the best validation, and strongest indication of willingness continue with the product

The most important metrics for us to track are 1, 4 and 5. This has been validated based on our engagements with new clients so far, and is a clear indication that the product is working for them.

Other relevant metrics to track besides the above;

• % conversion from intro call to demo call
• % conversion from demo call to contract stage
• % drop-offs at contract stage
• Breakdown of converted clients by stage, sector
• Breakdown of usage by product modules (availability, visibility etc.)
• Implementation TAT
• # of client service requests, escalations (post implementation)
• % contract renewals
• CSAT / NPS (post implementation, in early scaling stage)

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