Report: “Product”
Last month saw the expansion of the Product team to include 4 members, marking an increased focus on streamlining Invisible’s processes and systems. We made major improvements in Centralization, UX/UI, and Automation, allowing us to fine-tune and finalize our work in Zone 1 of the Client Journey.
Centralization
Sales
Perhaps our largest accounting hurdle was keeping a single record of all orders by client regardless of the payment channel. By integrating Stripe directly into our Onboarding Form (OBF), we’ve eliminated the issue of clients entering our accounting system through external means (like personal checks or pledges). We’ve also linked our Stripe account with Xero for accounting. As a result, client data is now being handed off smoothly from the OBF into Xero. More on this in the UX/UI section.
Sentry
In March we rolled out a brand new role to fill the gap between onboarding and operating. We found that the steps required to create a new Invisible Assistant were too time consuming to be accomplished by our Operations Team, so we created the Sentry Team (STT) to accomplish these tasks. These specialized team members focus solely on building the technical foundation for the client (via the [Creating an Assistant] process) so our Relationship Managers can do their job in the following stage.
Relationships
We also cleaned up the flow by which our client-facing agents can dialogue and brainstorm processes with the client. Known as the Relationship Management Team (RLT), these agents help the client structure their ideal delegations (via the [Relationship Managing] process). The Relationship Managers follow a series of text prompts to ensure a smooth experience.
G-Drive
We’ve honed our Google Drive structure even further, utilizing our three main folders (Company, The DAL, and Clients) as our guide. We’re creating a folder structure that will host only company data, with personal files removed.
LastPass
Our internal password database has been radically simplified: a single Clients folder now holds every client credential (listed as “Client -- Service”) which cuts down on search time and internal procedures for the Sentry Team.
UX/UI
Sales
Our major focus in Sales this month was collecting important client data from the OBF to make accounting easy and painless for both company and client. We streamlined the OBF to include direct charge with Stripe and a simplified delegation list. This allows both Sentry Team (STT) and Finance Team (FNC) to hit the ground running, collecting payment effortlessly and quickly addressing the client’s most pressing need.
Call/Text
Until last month, all correspondence between the client and their assistant took place via email. Since our goal is to become a channel-agnostic service, we’re expanding into calling and texting for communication and delegation. This is a very new option, so we are exploring a variety of systems for this. Currently we are running tests on Zendesk, but may be exploring a proprietary solution within Slack. More updates on this in April.
Automation
This month we focused primarily on automating high-level data from the Digital Assembly Line (DAL). Our 3 main areas of tracking for clients are Processes, Instances, and Spending. The overarching goal is to create a single Master Automated Client Dashboard with all metrics available in an easy-to-read format. This will be our task for April. In buildup to that goal, here’s what we achieved last month:
DAL — Master Process Tracking
Our Master Process Data sheet is now fully synchronized with the DAL, which gives us a single viewpoint for every process currently operational at Invisible (P.S. — it’s currently at 581). This allows anyone at the company to quickly pull up the most recent version of any process and read it on a simple text-based HTML page (here’s a sample).
DAL — Master Instance Tracking
Collecting all time spent executing processes required some collaboration with our Engineering Team. With the addition of “Start” and “Stop” buttons in the DAL, all billed time is now tracked and viewable by anyone in the company. We developed a similar sheet called Master Instance Data to show the date of the process, the agent it was assigned to, and how long it took the agent to complete.
DAL — Master Spending Tracking
We’ve built automated systems with Roter Blitz (our internal automation bot) to create a New Contact and New Invoice in Xero, which provides a more organized interface for our Finance Team internally. The Master Spending Data sheet is still in the making, but when this final piece of the client dashboard is complete we will have a completely automated spending record to round out the dashboard.
March saw the completion of Zone 1 (onboarding and setup) in the Client Journey, with a move into Zone 2 (delegation and execution) to come in April. We look forward to streamlining the core of the DAL in the upcoming months, which will increase overall performance in the most important arena of the company.
