How Vertiv Transformed Their Betterworks Experience with Customer Guides

Ingrid Cullen:
Hi everyone. Today I’m going to be leading a discussion with Alessandro Pini about how Vertiv transformed their Betterworks experience with customized Guides. So, first, by way of introduction, my name’s Ingrid Cullen. I’m a senior customer success manager here at Betterworks. I’ve been with Betterworks for about five years now, and I work with a lot of our larger organizations as they’re scaling their programs for OKRs and performance enablement. And I’m joined by Alessandro, who I’ve been working with for a few years now. So, Alessandro, I’ll let you introduce yourself.

Alessandro Pini:
Thank you, Ingrid. Hi to everyone. I’m Alessandro Pini. I’m working at Vertiv. I joined the company more or less five years ago and right now I’m covering the role of project manager for some of our learning and development global programs, such as the onboarding program, mentoring, and also performance management. In parallel, I carry on some activities to coordinate L&D programs at the EMEA level. I’m based in Italy, in Bologna. 

Ingrid Cullen:
Great. Great. Thank you.

Alessandro Pini:
Happy to be here.

Ingrid Cullen:
Great, thanks. And a little background on Vertiv. Vertiv’s been working with Betterworks for a little over four years now and uses our full suite. So OKRs, conversations, feedback, recognition across almost 14,000 employees globally, so a fairly large program at scale. And Vertiv started using Betterworks’ Guides a little over a year ago. And so what are Betterworks’ Guides? This is what we’ll be discussing today. These are in-app popups and notifications. So if you’re a current Betterworks customer, you’re actually already familiar with Guides even if you didn’t realize it. So when we have a new feature, when we have a release, we’ll put a little popup, a notification. If you are a current customer, you would’ve seen this popup for this webinar as well. And this is a way that we can push information directly to people where they are, include tool tips and relevant information.

And one thing that we’ve started to make available is the option to customize Guides and to make Guides available to customers to really build them out to meet your organization’s particular needs. And this is available as part of our support account manager package, which includes an enhanced support service. So we’d be able to help you set up and maintain all of those Guides. But Vertiv was the first customer to come to us who was really interested in this. So we started this partnership and seeing the Guides to solve one particular problem.

But then Alessandro and his team got really creative. So today we’ll be sharing some of the different ways that you can use Guides. So to start off, Alessandro, we can go into how does Vertiv use Guides and the initial use case and what you did.

Alessandro Pini:
Absolutely. As Ingrid was saying, we started adopting the Guides for a specific purpose which was to have a quick way to have the translation of our conversations with our managers inside Betterworks. We tried a different way in the past, having a specific conversation set up in Betterworks, but it was really demanding in terms of managing all the conversations from different languages. So we implemented the guide for this reason to have the translation of specific languages as we are a global company spread in all the regions: EMEA, Asia Pacific, and America. So we have different locations with different needs in terms of languages.

So we needed to have a quick tool to make this translation visible. For this reason, we adopted this kind of guide, and as you can see here from this example here, we are inside a conversation page, a conversation between a manager and the direct report. And here inside, as you can see, the first box is a guide related to the instruction around how to take the conversation. And if we can go to the next, you will see also the other version. So we have the instruction and also all the specific questions that you can see on the right part of the screen. But on the left, we have the translations. So again, we needed to find a quick way and we found it by adopting this kind of guide.

Ingrid Cullen:
And some things that I would add here that I think worked well when you started using the Guides versus the separate conversation templates for different languages is, as you mentioned, having multiple templates for the same conversation was a lot for the administrators to manage. And so using one template, but having the popups allowed, it was a simpler process because there was just one template to report on. And the Guides work based on the language that the user has selected in their settings. So in this case, there’s a user who has Italian as their language, and so they’re automatically seeing the Italian. If the language were set to Chinese or Spanish or Russian, they would see the appropriate language there as well. 

And one thing that came up that I thought was interesting was that Vertiv does have a number of situations where a manager and a direct report may speak together in one language but have different language settings. Maybe the manager’s system is defaulted to English and the direct report’s system is defaulted to their local language because that’s just what they prefer. And this way they’re still receiving the same conversation, it’s just that it’s customized for their particular language.

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly, exactly. So this was another need that we had. So having a conversation between a manager based, in Europe for example, with a direct report based in Asia Pacific, so that using these kinds of guides, direct reports or the manager can select by themself the specific language and add the specific boss in their page.

Ingrid Cullen:
Yeah, so this is where Vertiv started. This was really the first need that they had for the popups. But as I mentioned, once Alessandro got familiar with this, started to find a number of other ways to use these.

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly. This is another example because we started with the translations, but then we found out that we have several ways that we can communicate things in better words through these Guides. This is another example of a guide that we designed and created when we implemented the Homepage, this new feature Betterworks Homepage. And we wanted to implement an easy way to communicate with our employees about this new feature and then give them some guidance and some direction in terms of what we are talking about and also adding some links to gather more info. And this is an example of a two-step guide because with the guide, we imagine this box, this one box, but we have the possibility to create a sort of virtual leaflet. So we can have a one-page as you can see here with maybe the general information about this new feature.

And then adding some buttons, as you can see here, we can go to the next page that we created to go into details. So again, a new feature, general overview. Clicking on the next here we have the possibility to add further information. For example, a link to a video tutorial that I remember Ingrid provided us, but also to attach a specific slide in PowerPoint using another format, for example, where we give some guidance on how to set up the Homepage as a main page as a landing page for Betterworks. So clicking on how to set it up, you will also have another page with the tutorial with the several steps on how to set up this new feature.

Ingrid Cullen:
Yep. So the conversation popups that you guys saw, the first one with the instruction was kind of a general popup that appeared. The translations for the questions appeared as sort of a tool tip on the side. And then this one here, it’s showing something that has multiple steps, so multiple things that people can click through. And as I mentioned, we use Guides at Betterworks ourselves. And so when we launch a new feature, like when we launched Homepage, we did do a guide that went out to customers explaining the new feature, but Vertiv chose that instead of using our guide, they wanted to make their own custom guide. So it was a little bit more specific to their population. And those links and resources I think actually went to the Vertiv SharePoint. So it was in Vertiv-specific materials. Oh, and then this is going in-

Alessandro Pini:
The third page.

Ingrid Cullen:
Yeah. This is the third page. So this was a slide that was included in some training materials that Vertiv had put together and so it put it right into Betterworks. So it’s creating that connection where employees are seeing the same content that they’re seeing in their other training and their other communications. And so it feels very specific to the organization.

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly. So the idea was to create a connection also to our format, our tutorial that we communicate through our SharePoint to our internet, but through this guide we can also upload the images and PowerPoints saved as a JPEG, for example, and also adding several links to external pages.

Ingrid Cullen:
And then this was another use you guys came up with.

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly and this is related to LinkedIn Learning. So we recently embraced this program, LinkedIn Learning, so the wide offering from LinkedIn in terms of training. And here we had another purpose, facilitating the possibility for corporate employees to know about this new program, about LinkedIn Learning. And then we decided to, again, design a badge info guide. Here, what we did is we took the info icon, we enlarged it, and we put the title LinkedIn Learning, and we attached a guide where we explained why we are using LinkedIn Learning or the benefits that you can have through these wide offerings available and also a specific session for managers.

As you can see here, we also added some links and also directly into the SharePoint. And with this guide, you can also decide where you can locate this kind of message because, for example, this is another example of a conversation between managers and direct reports. So we decided to put this information inside them because we thought it was the right place to talk about development. But anyhow, you can decide to locate and to move this guide into another area inside Betterworks so that can be inside the conversation page, inside the objectives page, and also in the homepage, and so on. So depending on the different purpose, you can also move your guide.

Ingrid Cullen:
Absolutely, and I think this is a great example of kind of tying the different programs that you have. So you’ve got the conversations which are for employee development, you have the learning through LinkedIn Learning, so for additional training. And this really reinforces the message that if there’s something that comes up in a conversation that you want a team member to work on or to direct them to some more resources, it’s right there. They don’t have to go somewhere else. It puts everything front of mind.

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly.

Ingrid Cullen:
Great. And then this was another use that you found within the OKR settings?

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly. This is a different location because here we are inside the goal-setting page, so where you can create the new OKR, and we recently implemented the new categories that are reflecting our strategy, and we just wanted, at the beginning of 2021, to better communicate. So this is about communication. I mean these new categories available for our OKRs. This was the right moment because we were at the beginning of 2021. And we designed this guide and relayed that, “Please be sure while you are setting up your OKRs, to select the right category for your OKR.” Then we decided to change the colors so we have the possibility of doing this. So we tested several colors and we just put it as gold because we thought it was important just to highlight this information and again, this is a popup guide. Yeah.

Ingrid Cullen:
Yeah. For those of you who are current Betterworks customers you’re familiar with the categories in the OKR module where you can set essentially what is a tag to an objective, and categories can be used in a number of different ways. So some organizations use them to highlight aspirational versus committed objectives, things that are for the business versus personal development, or what’s really common as Vertiv used it is to highlight strategic themes. 

And I think what was helpful here about having additional instructions is that Vertiv had rolled out new strategic themes in 2021 as part of their three-year strategy. And so this was guiding people to like, hey, here are the new categories and this is what they mean, because Vertiv had used some categories in the past, but they weren’t going to be relevant anymore now that there was this new three-year strategy. So it was a way to highlight that update and keep that top of mind and then you also used conducting a survey.

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly, exactly. So here we run a survey, I think this one was one year ago. We needed to run a survey around the quarterly conversation. And I know that there’s a possibility to run all our questions using this guide, but as we have Microsoft Form to design questionnaires, we decided to design first a guide here where we put the link of several questionnaires that we have, depending on the language. So we created this sort of matrix adding specific buttons for the languages. And all these buttons are related to translating the survey into specific languages. So we use this as a sort of bridge with our survey in Microsoft Form. And it was very useful because this is not a pop-up guide because there’s no badging for the icon, but whenever you enter inside Betterworks, you will have, at the first click, this guide appearing. So this is the first action that it requires to do. So taking the survey and then you can navigate it through the site. This is another way to implement.

Ingrid Cullen:
Yeah. And I thought this was great because the survey was about the conversation process. And so it put it right there in the context of, “You’ve just completed your conversation. Here’s a reminder to complete a quick survey.” We also offer Betterworks Engage as a survey tool that we offer as well. And so you could link that through the guide here, but Vertiv chose to just use the survey that they were using, but just to put it front and center for people. And I think you had a pretty good response rate for this survey if I remember correctly.

Alessandro Pini:
Absolutely. Absolutely. If I remember correctly, something like 4,000 people answered this survey, so it’s quite good.

Ingrid Cullen:
Fantastic.

Alessandro Pini:
The most difficult part was collecting all the answers and making the analysis.

Ingrid Cullen:
Yep. Yep. Okay. And then this was another one where Vertiv customized. So when we launched a new UI at Betterworks last year, we did a Betterworks Guide that we pushed to our customers, but Vertiv chose to customize this through their own Guides.

Alessandro Pini:
Exactly. This is another example of a message that we wanted to communicate through the site and through Betterworks. So we launched this new user interface for Betterworks, and we just wanted to communicate the difference between the old and the new interface. So we designed this guide. This is a, if I remember correctly, two-step guide. So if you want to know more, you can click the button and then you have again a quick slide where I explained what is the difference between the old and the new interface.

Ingrid Cullen:
Great. All right. So those are some of the ways that Vertiv’s used Guides, that they’ve been really creative in finding those solutions. But to look at it overall, I wanted to ask about what’s been the overall impact of Guides. What have you seen since you rolled this out?

Alessandro Pini:
So for us, for me personally, it was a huge impact because managing first the translations was really great. Having a unique tool to communicate the languages and the translation through conversations was the main big change. And there’s some work to do before in terms of setup, but I have to say that it’s worth it because, again, when you are implementing the first guide for the first, for example, in our case for the first conversation, then you just needed to copy and paste and change the location to the new conversation. So the setting page for this guide is really easy to use and it was really a good change for us. Yeah.

I was thinking that we have another example that we just explained. The importance, for example, of communicating LinkedIn Learning. In this guide system, we have the possibility to run some analysis, to have some metrics to see if people looked at the guide, how many visitors we had in the specific period of time. And for example, in the example of LinkedIn Learning, we saw as we put this guide during the quarterly conversation, we have a great visibility about LinkedIn Learning and we had also an increase of people who joined the program thanks to this guide inside the quarterly conversation, just to say that this can be an alternative tool to communicate the important thing about programs and development.

Ingrid Cullen:
Great. And that’s an important point. I’m glad you brought up that when you’re setting up the Guides, you also have an admin panel where you can see analytics and activity and just insights on what are people clicking on, who’s using it, who does it go to. Great. And then I wanted to ask you to speak a little bit about the setup process, and you touched on it a bit, but how did you get started with Guides?

Alessandro Pini:
So the setup process, of course, I had to take a training to better familiarize with the admin panel. Again, I think for me it was really easy to use and I’m a psychologist, so if I can do this, I think that most of you can do the same. And again, it’s really easy to use. I think that the most important thing is understanding that you have several ways through which you can communicate these kinds of things inside the system. So being creative and trying to find alternative ways. For example, as we did the survey, usually we communicate the survey through our email, but Betterworks is a tool that we can use also for communicating these tasks for example, the survey, the implementation of the new programs, and so on. So it’s not difficult to set the first guide. Personally really easy to do and once you get the first guide for the translation in our case, then everything was fine from this part.

Ingrid Cullen:
Perfect. Yeah. We also offer, so Vertiv does have a team dedicated to this, but we also at Betterworks offer support to help get those set up, even though it’s straightforward, we can help take some of that work off your plate as well. I’m going to move into Q&A. We did have a question come up about whether the tool itself remains in English when you’re using those translations.

So I can actually answer that. So at Betterworks, we do offer a translation for our platform. We have 14 different languages that we support and users can set their language settings and that does translate content that’s native to the platform. So anywhere you see objectives, conversations, any instructions that are in the platform, those are translated, but content that’s entered by users is not translated by the platform. So that would be the case with a conversation where the admin is creating the questions and that’s why it’s helpful to have those popups to translate within a single conversation. 

And then another question we got was about including video in the popups. Is that something that you’ve been able to do?

Alessandro Pini:
I can answer here. Yes. I know that you can include video from YouTube directly to have the video inside the communication. But as we did in the past, you can create a link if you have, for example, some video in Gmail or in another format, you can just take the link, add this link in the guide, and then users will able to click the link, and have the video appearing.

Ingrid Cullen:
Yeah, so that’s another kind of creative way. Alright, I think that that is it for questions. So just, in closing, thank you to everyone for joining today. I see that there are a number of current Betterworks customers on the call, but for those of you who are new to Betterworks, just a little reminder of what we do, we close the loop between people, strategy, and results, help align even your most sprawling and dynamic teams. So thank you very much for joining us today.

Alessandro Pini:
Thank you.

Ingrid Cullen:
Alright. Thanks, everyone.