Goal
Take the concept of a sales playbook and build that into software to create a repeatable, automated way to reach out and follow up with Leads.
Context
The product contained some automated email features but lacked the ability to send multiple emails, SMS, or make calls in a cadence and so was unable to truly represent a customers sales process.
My Role as Senior Product Designer:
- Synthesized user research and competitive analysis into actionable design requirements
- Partnered with Product Manager to define phased scope and prioritize features
- Prototyped complex multi-step flows and interaction patterns
- Designed all screens, states, and edge cases for the complete sequencing experience
- Created comprehensive design specifications and documentation for engineering handoff
Business Need
Competitors had launched sequencing tools for emails and customers were moving to these other platforms. To create a competitive advantage, Close needed its own sequencing tool that was extensive for different mediums as the feature scaled.
Customer Need
Customers were forced to create workarounds using smart lists and link them from external products to manually manage the cadence of their sales process outside of Close. This caused inefficiency, frustration, and additional cost for separate products.
Constraints
There was no current technical system to track changes to any lead that was in a sequence. Emails should come first because there is an existing system in place and they can be sent without human interaction. SMS likely to follow soon after. Given the shape-up methodology, the initial feature needs to be completed within 6 weeks.
Exploration
Lo-fi sketching and flows are a key part of any project to quickly explore multiple ideas and see which resonate with users, stakeholders, and can be accomplished within the given scope and constraints.
Concepts
Higher fidelity earlier can sometimes be necessary when trying to explore interaction concepts as opposed to hierarchy and flows; though they are often completed in parallel with broader low-fi efforts.
What customers said
“I’m super excited to start testing on a bigger scale, this could totally change all the janky automation I’ve set up over the last year!”
“Keeps the team more organized—using Close more.”
Outcomes
The feature shipped within the 6-week deadline and helped stem customer churn to competitors. Within the first quarter:
- Strong adoption from existing customers who replaced external sequencing tools
- Customers reported fewer missed follow-ups and more consistent outreach
- Sequences became a key differentiator in sales demos
We started with email-only to ship quickly, then added calling in a follow-up cycle based on customer feedback.
Integrating calling
Given that calls are a manual process,how can they be included in a timed sequence?
Calling requires manual intervention from sales folks. They are the ones making the calls.
This means the system needs to track:
- When a call should be made
- Who should make the call
- Does that call date and time align with the scheduling window
Find out more details about calling on sequences as it’s explained by the Head of Sales, Nick Persico.