Tooling for Contractor Conversion

My Role:

• Research scoping

• Discussion guide / protocol design

• Survey design

• Participant recruiting

• Interview moderation

• Analysis & synthesis

Phases: Discovery

Duration: 3 weeks

Date: June 2023

Background

In Q2 2023, Block launched a new product in its largest market, substantially expanding the number of contractor partners responsible for selling this new product. During the launch, Block's internal team provided substantial support and guidance to contractors, helping them to secure more projects.

Simultaneously, Block aimed to significantly boost the number of projects won by our contractors, without a substantial increase in operational support. To accomplish this, Block sought to equip contractors with self-service tools, reducing their dependence on individual support and enabling them to grow their business in Block's marketplace.

Objective

Uncover key areas of opportunity for Block’s product and tooling to 1) enable contractors to win more work while 2) reducing the amount of operational support required to help contractors close projects. 

Specifically, I sought to:

• Understand how and when contractors are interacting with the Block mobile app during the sales cycle.

• Identify additional tools, resources, or forms of support Block contractors are using to prepare to work with Block homeowners, and where Block’s current tooling is falling short in supporting them.

• Capture the primary touchpoints and ways Block’s internal teams (i.e. sales and marketplace supply) are supporting contractors during the sales cycle.

Experience Mapping

Co-create an experience map with key members of Block’s marketplace supply and sales teams to capture touch points at which they are supporting contractors.

Sales Team Survey

Conduct a small-scale survey with the Block sales team to understand the most common tasks / activities they are doing to support contractors and quantify the effort for each.

Contractor Interviews

Conduct ~30-minute guided interviews with 8 contractors to gain insight into business growth goals and barriers, how they prepare to work with Block leads, and how they do (and don’t) leverage our tools during the sales cycle.

Opportunity Area Synthesis

Summarize key insights from journey mapping, surveys, and interviews to develop a set of prioritized opportunity areas and initial ideas for product-let contractor tools to inform the Q3 product roadmap.