Camping World
A UX Case Study (2020)
OVERVIEW
Camping World is a leading RV sales outfit and their sales team was having trouble using Salesforce to mange the sales process. My team was assigned the task of designing a task-focused sales app built on Salesforce to support the sales process.
MY ROLE
User Experience Lead
Design, prototyping and wireframes
Research, analysis and reporting
RESULTS
Project was successful and a new iOS app was created and piloted for the sales team. The app allowed them to seamlessly manage tasks, communicate with customers and keep up to date with the newest RVs at their store.
Designed for Camping World.
PROBLEM
Camping World sales associates have trouble using Salesforce to manage the sales process.
"I hate using Salesforce. Nothing is easy to find."
"We spend at least 2 hours a week looking for support."
"It slows down my sales process."
"Salesforce is hard to use and has very little value to me."
HOW MIGHT WE
Research and design a solution that utilizes Salesforce and simultaneously simplifies the experience?
OVERVIEW

Simplicity is Key

Salespeople prefer simplicity. The tools Camping World was providing did not cater to their mental model and they were simply not using them. This project was to design an iOS app built on Salesforce that employees can use to manage the sales process.
Project Goals
1
Create an iOS app for RV Sales Associates.
2
Streamline the digital RV sales process.
3
Provide simple, usable mobile sales tools.
4
Design, test and build the app in 6 months.
My Role
I am UX Lead at Camping World and handled the research, design and management of the project. I worked on user research and design with the goal of infusing best UX practices in the final product. Our internal team worked with an outside firm who were instrumental in bringing the project to life.
User Insights
I traveled to 6 Camping World locations and spoke with 20+ participants to identify needs, pain points and solutions associated with the app.
UX Strategy
Partnering with the business and technical teams to ensure the user-centered design principles were infused, entrenched and considered from discovery to implementation.
UX Design
Working with both business leaders and field-level associates to define and drive iterative design cycles with both wireframes and ultimately a working prototype to ensure maximum usability.
Usability Testing
Planning, coordinating and executing usability testing sessions and reporting using best-in-class methodologies which allowed for quick iteration that ultimately improved the product.
Planning and Scoping
As UX practices were new to Camping World I was able to inject myself into every aspect of the project including requirements gathering and analysis, scoping and project management.
Project Summary
UX project to design and deliver an iOS app for the Camping World sales team.
My Role
UX Lead, Project Management, Wireframes, Interaction Design, User Research and Analysis. The design team on this was a vendor partner UI Designer and myself.
Introduction
Camping World is a leading retail company that sells RVs across the USA. This project was a multi-part project to design an iOS application built on the back of Salesforce that employees can use to manage the sales process.
The Challenge
Sales associates had been using the out-of-the-box Salesforce and were very confused by it. The challenge was to provide a tool built on the back of Salesforce that was simple to use and effective in sales.
Discovery
tl;dr I traveled to Camping World dealerships and conducted user interviews with sales associates to learn about existing issues.
Executive Summary
Prologue
Summary Video
Short on time? Please take a look at the 6 minute video overview below to fill in any gaps and provide a bite-size overview of the project.
User Research
Camping World sent me to 6 RV Dealership Locations to conduct user research. Sales Associate insights proved extremely valuable in understanding their pain points and design requirements.
USER QUOTE
January, Sales Associate
"There is way too much cross-referencing and searching in Salesforce to be productive - I simply need everything in one spot."
USER QUOTE
Phillip, Sales Associate
"There are a lot of other competitors doing what Salesforce does - way better. I would like to see a simple system like some of those."
USER QUOTE
Brian, Sales Associate
"I need to go through 3 screens to see my history with this customer. It is a huge hassle to find very simple information in Salesforce."
USER QUOTE
PAUL, Sales Associate
"Calls and texts are the entire narrative of our history with a customer. It is the most important information in Salesforce and we barely have access to it."
Research Findings
From conversations with 16 Sales Associates and 4 Managers the UX team began to understand the main pain points and themes that users were experiencing day-to-day using Salesforce. The cards below illustrate the prominent issues that we aimed to mitigate with the design of the app.
Digital Sticky Notes
The UX team was able to synthesize the needs of the sales associate users via data trends from the research.
Sales Associate Notes
Getting into the mind of whoever you are interviewing is incredibly important to make good design decisions - the sales associate note show the typical workflow of how they use customer information.
Key Findings
Below is the summary of issue themes that were learned through the contextual interviews with RV Sales Associates during the Discovery process.
RELEVANT INFO HIDDEN
Users reported needing to dig for relevant information making them unproductive using Salesforce.
NAVIGATION ISSUES
Users had issues navigating the sales process using Salesforce which caused a lot of friction.
LACK OF TOOLS
Users reported being hamstrung by the lack of communication tools in Salesforce.
TIME CONSUMING
Users reported that the tools they had were time consuming and they would rather not use them.
User Types
The app was predominantly designed for Camping World sales associates. A lot was learned via the research about these sales associates and how to design an interface for them.
Sales Associate
"Give me the name of a customer and the RV they want - everything else just complicates the sale."
Goals
  • Sell RVs quickly and easily
  • Rely less on Salesforce
  • Set sales appointments in effort to make the sale
Frustrations
  • Required tasks with Salesforce
  • Hard to navigate Salesforce
  • General CRM usage and complexity
Bio
Camping World sales associates are a rare breed of salespeople. They are at once technically sound but reluctant to want to utilize any system for conducting sales. The primary issue in their perspective is that there is a lot of busywork. The desire then is to get in and get out quickly and a mobile tool would compliment these requirements well.
Design
tl;dr I made wireframes and prototypes and worked with users to get an understanding of usability and concept validation.
Design Process
The designs began as sketches and moved to static wireframes which were iterated into a final working prototype. The process of working with the business to share designs and ensure all requirements were met and product usability were high were of utmost importance.
Sketching
Sketching is a great way to get the bad ideas iterated into decent ideas with minimal effort. I always start with sketching or white boarding to get the basic foundation down.
Wireframes
Wireframes in this case allowed me to build on my sketches with a bit more fidelity and subsequently get them in front of users for feedback.
Prototype
Once the structure was nailed down, the interaction design was layered in using a prototype designed in Axure (my favorite for IxD) and for user testing.
APP DESIGN PROCESS
1. Sketch structure and screen flows.
APP DESIGN PROCESS
2. Design and build interactive prototype
APP DESIGN PROCESS
3. Design and finalize the screen flows.
APP DESIGN PROCESS
4. Develop and test rapid prototype
Personas
Piecing People Together. Personas were borne from the contextual interviews and understanding the business process to a higher fidelity. Armed with that knowledge we then understood what problems we were trying to solve for Sales Associates and who we were ultimately designing with in mind.
Camping World Sales Associate
Josh the Super Salesman | 47
"I just want to talk to customers. All I want or need is an RV model and a phone number and I'll take it from there."
AGE
25-47
OCCUPATION
Sales Associate
INCOME
50-75k
TECHNICAL
Mid-Low
Overview
Sales Associates are the face of Camping World. They are motivated by selling and communicating with customers. They have little interest in busy-work associated with sales CRMs and believe that slows them down.
Overall they dislike Salesforce and feel it does not support them in their processes. More than that however, they do not believe they need a platform to help them with their role.
Needs
  • Simple, quick designs that enable them to reduce time in the system
  • Design should be non-intrusive to their sales process
  • Design that should be 'lightweight' and quick
Frustrations
  • Navigational issues within Salesforce
  • Time on task for each 'Activity' required
  • Hidden information and the need to find it
  • Too many options leads to paralysis and rebellion
DESIGN
Sketching Solutions
Putting Ideas to Sketchpad. Sketches were used to get the basic layout of the app completed ahead of moving pixels. Below are some examples of sketching done prior to moving toward a finalized design. The purpose here was to get the basic flow and layout structure before wireframing.
Prototypes
A Higher Fidelity.  For this project instead of wireframes, we chose a prototype to focus on the interaction design of the app. The overall flow would be worked out in mini-user research sessions with Sales Associates. The intent was to reduce the amount of information and time associated with all activities in the app and provide everything in 4 simple tabs: Tasks, Customers, Communicator and Showroom.
View Prototype
Design Solutions
Salesforce presented a lot of issues for users. The UX team wanted to reduce the complexity and simplify the experience into an easy-to-use pocket sized app. The solutions below are some highlights that directly resolved some of the most common pain points.
Design Solution
Streamline Navigation
The Salesforce system that the app was built on was full of navigational issues and users were clear it confused them. For the app we simplified the navigation into four 'Sections' for each of the main categories: Tasks, Customers, Communicator and Showroom. This simple adjustment allowed sales associates to easily navigate without issue but still keep all the necessary functionality.
Design Solution
Provide Communication Tools
Feedback from the sales team was that they needed to be able to call, text and email their customers from the app. We provided seamless integration to do so from the app. In addition, we added the bonus ability for sales users to set appointments and view customer RV preferences.
Design Solution
Events Calendar
During research the sales associates mentioned that they felt the lack of planning and event tools were a detriment. They were using multiple tools such as Outlook and paper calendars to track appointments. We added in calendar functionality that was easily accessed from the Tasks screen to help them work better with to plan customer events.
Design Solution
RV Showroom
During research, associates shared that they would like to be able to share new RVs with customers. The Showroom feature was added to quickly and easily share new models with customers. This addition was completely different than Salesforce and offered a visual interface to track, match and sell RVs to customers.
Screen Flows
Overall Screen Composition and Flows. The app was deceptively simple but had a lot of avenues users could go down to complete tasks. The workflows were prototyped and determined during and below are wireframes showing the first and second navigational levels of the app from the prototype.
Camping World Prototype Screen Flow
The USERS
The users detailed below are the users who the solution was designed with in mind. Below is some relevant information about them and their personas.
Camping World Sales Associate

Camping World Sales Associates

Branding
Add the finishing touches. Camping World did not have a style guide so we used were a moodboard that was being developed by the Marketing team. We used iconography, typography and most of the branding would be completed in the second iteration.
Testing
tl;dr I managed the planning and usability testing for the project and was able to get some helpful feedback for refining the initial version.
Usability Testing
Identifying Issues via Observation. For this project the developers created a working prototype and we gave it to the users to usability test in the field. I conducted moderated usability testing sessions with users and observed them using the application.
USER QUOTE
SALES ASSOCIATE
"Task List is a lot easier to use and is much simpler than it is in Salesforce. I like that I can see if I need to call, text or have an appointment right through the app! That is definitely going to be very useful for pushing sales through much quicker than today."
USER QUOTE
SALES ASSOCIATE
"It' is extremely easy to find my customers in here. No more writing out tons of notes that I lose around the office anyway. Love that we can use the app as a contact list for easy access."
USER QUOTE
ANGELA, PARTICIPANT
“This app is awesome! The best part of the app is being able to show my customers new models in the Showroom section! We can really easily share the new models by dropping a text from the app - amazing.”
USER QUOTE
TRACIE, PARTICIPANT
“Calling and texting from the app is a serious game changer…I no longer have to give out my personal information in order to start a dialogue with customers. This means I don't get hounded at all hours of the night!”
Project Results
The Results. The usability testing and initial release of the app went very well. Sales Associates were thrilled with the ability to communicate with customers in the app. The simplification of the Salesforce UI helped to increase usability and efficiency across the board.
9%
TASK SPEED INCREASE
Sales Associcates can complete Salesforce tasks much faster in the app.
03
AVG SHARED RVs
Sales Associates share many more RV makes and models with the app than previous tools.
12
CALLS AND TEXTS
Average amount of calls and texts that Sales Associates made within the app per day.
02
DAILY SAVED HOURS
Average time saved by Sales Associates when using the app compared to Salesforce.
The Impact
The app went through a successful pilot and has a second iteration planned to add more features. Going through the process of discovery, refinement, design and piloting the app was beneficial to the company for a few reasons: increased efficiency for sales associates in the field, easier tracking of communications to and from customers and the ability for users to rely less on Salesforce during the sales process.
What did you think of this case study?
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