Google Ads CRM
Designing a Gmail Scheduler that identifies leads and empowers Google sellers to build meaningful client relationships effortlessly
Interaction Designer
Web, Mobile
Ads, CRM, Enterprise
Challenge
Google Ads sales representatives currently spend a significant amount of time on administrative tasks.
The goal is to develop a solution that streamlines these processes, allowing sales teams to focus more on selling and significantly boost their efficiency.
Results
The project launched from the ground up, reaching over 10,000 active users and generating 600K+ time availability entries.
Enhanced usability and automation achieved 81% customer satisfaction, with requests focused on expanded functionality.
Streamlined data tracking improved accuracy across key fields such as name, company, contact info, language, timezone, and communication preferences—while process optimization delivered 22 FTE savings per month.
10,000+
Monthly Active users
81%
Customer Satisfaction
600k
Time Availability Inserted
Challenge
Many Google Ads Sellers rely on the internal Google CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool to develop their sales strategies, with client data accuracy being critical information for the CRM to create and track better sales strategies.
Increase Google Seller's workflow efficiency Measured through Full Time Employee (FTE) Headcount Saved, roughly translates to the time and cost for a full time employee.
Increase client information accuracy for data points such as client name, company, contact info, language, timezone, and communication preferences need to be completed and updated.
Product Problem
Google CRM relies on robust data information on the client and touch points tracking to recommend good opportunities to our sellers.
Currently, the system relies on the seller to manually input the Customer’s information, in the CRM, resulting in low data information entry in the system.
User Problem
Google sellers are hesitant to change their established workflows due to a “don’t fix what isn’t broken” mindset.
They tend to prioritize short-term efficiency over long-term improvement, making it challenging to introduce new steps that initially slow them down even if they ultimately deliver greater value.
Our users
Small to medium sellers with large books of business (50-150), conducting at least 7 external meetings per week. Replying on outbount sells, less personal and many first time meetings
Clients meeting with Google 2-3 times per month, with primary medium of contact through emails
Large sellers (Deprioritized)
120k
SMB Sellers
7+
External meetings per week
50-150
Clients in their Book of Business
I conducted two types of user research with our PM and Business Partner with our Google internal sellers by shadowing them through their day-to-day work.
User interviews and user observation to understand current day-to-day workflow for GMS & LCS Sellers on their engagement with clients.
Task walkthroughs & usability test to understand whether a users can accomplish the core task with the proposed solution.
I realised for the solution to be effective, the solution must derive from part of the seller's natural workflow, during the user observation we paid special attention to frequent, recurring behaviors.
Google Toothbrush test
A product development framework that assesses a product's potential value by asking: "Is this something you will use once or twice a day, and does it make your life better?
Through our user research, we observed a common pattern where the sellers spend a significant amount of time scheduling meetings with clients, the back and forth interaction typically looks like this:
Large advertiser account structure can be very complex
The interaction poses a few friction points for our sellers:
1
Long Decision Process
2
Days wasted till agreement
3
Time & Energy to reply
4
Switching between calendar and email
We then categorized the types of scheduling use cases into Push, Pull, and Assisted scheduling to help us focus our solution.
I created the following critical user journeys to capture the goals and motivations for the two major types of users that will be involved in our solution, as sellers, and customers.
CUJ 1
As a seller, I want to email my customers with some availability to schedule a meeting
CUJ 2
As a customer, I want to quickly select a time and confirm a time with my Google seller
Design Sprints
I hosted design sprints during the Google Ads Summit to work across PMs, Engineers, Sellers, and Business Partners to generate possibles solutions.
We had this quote preside over us throughout the design sprint, keeping in mind to design something useful, not just to achieve the intended metrics.
I created a task flow to visually capture the specific steps it takes to schedule a meeting with a client to make sure each step is efficient and logical.
Wireframes: From the task-flows, I quickly created these wireframes within Google Slides to socialize the concept with stakeholders and gather instant feedback.
Solution
Due to the product being between 3 different Google product spaces, we plan to utilize existing patterns from the products to reducing the user’s learning curve
Entry Point
Schedule Configeration
Client Facing
Desktop
Start with Gmail: Since all the Google Sellers uses Gmail to initiate the conversation with new clients, we added a scheduler in a new tool bar within Gmail and automatically detect when users mention "Schedule", "Meeting", or "quick chat", and prompts the seller to click on the "Scheduler" icon.
When the user clicks on the Scheduler, a modal with time slots that are matched to their Gmail Calendar with availabilities surface with a few form fields for our sellers to fill
Capturing critical data: As the sellers are creating the meeting slots through the scheduler, the user will need to add in the client timezone, client language, client contact info to ensure the timing is correct, this is where the data is passed through to the CRM to ensure the client data stays up to date everytime a meeting is scheduled.
Once complete, the time slots are appended directly into the email.
When the client receives the email, the time slots will show up directly within their email client as the time slots are rendered as interactive images.
The client selects the time slot that works best for them automatically translated into their timezone.
A confirmation email is sent to both the Client and the Seller directly linked to Calendar.
Many sellers communicate with their clients at the client's availability, which means the sellers are often scheduling on the go thus creating a mobile solution in the Gmail native app was a critical usecase.
I mirrored a similar solution for our mobile counterpart to the Gmail Assistant that enables the user to append timeslots into the Gmail client
Impact
After pilot and iteration, we received 10,000+ active users from the internal Chrome Web Store with 600k times successfully inserted with a 96% success rate. Usefulness of the product was evident through 81% CSAT with majority negative feedback asking for 1-to-many client use case:
Most importantly, this ensured the client data quality is maintained up to date each time the seller schedules a meeting through the Gmail Scheduler as part of their natural workflow.
