We were back in Nashville this year for the Ideas to Impact Conference. For those of you who weren’t able to join us, here’s a quick visual review:
Our salespeople, trainers, product owners, and researchers were there to serve you. We became known as the “gray shirts”, and our number one goal was to take care of you.
My priority at the conference this year was listening to you. Actually, that’s the daily focus of the research team I work with. In a nutshell, the User Experience (UX) team:
- Sets up phone meetings with customers,
- Shows you designs for new features in Realm,
- And asks how you expect things to work.
We take note of your suggestions and provide recommendations to the development team. If a majority of customers agree that something should work a certain way, we want to build it that way!
At conference, we had new designs to test for several areas of Realm. Here’s just a bit of what we accomplished with your help.
Tests with no right or wrong answers…
We had lots “user tests” that we walked through with customers. Despite the name, there are no right or wrong answers – we just want to hear honest feedback and make sure Realm works for you.
Customers looked at designs for check-in, email settings, pending invites, and recurring gifts, and we asked questions about how you work with events, pathways, and security badges.
Helping us help you…
I was excited to get feedback on several Help features my team has been working on.
We recently went live with our Training Video Library where you can find step-by-step tutorials. It was well-received, and we got awesome ideas and suggestions to make it even better.
On screens that are a little more complex — like custom queries, account segments, and sacraments — we’ve started adding tips in Realm to help you out. That way, you don’t have to leave Realm to find out how to start on something new. You provided great suggestions that we hadn’t thought of! This benefits all customers going forward, and it all started with you.
And the survey says…
If you’ve been to our booth before, you know you’re gonna get a survey or two! This is a great way for us to get feedback on smaller things to make sure we’re on the right track. This year, we asked about your experience with the performance, speed, and quality of Realm.
We also used surveys to gauge your interest in things like:
- Having a Realm certification program,
- Allowing congregants to access outside payment solutions when donating within Realm,
- Allowing congregants to use social media credentials as a Realm login,
- And using the change log.
If you’re not interested in it, we don’t want to spend time that we could use working on something that’s more useful to you.
Sign me up!
All in all, I think this year’s conference was a success. It’s a little overwhelming to talk to so many people in such a short timespan, but it’s always rewarding — for everyone involved. You help us with our research, and you get to see upcoming features in Realm. It’s a win-win!
Does this sound like something you’d like to do? Join our Customer Advisory Team (the CAT) by emailing your name, site number, and job title to UXTeam@acstechnologies.com. When we have designs related to your role, our fabulous researcher, Rachel, will schedule your meeting time.
Come see us next year in Orlando, Florida! Register soon for early bird rates.
