What’s the design?

Spot is an AI bot that helps employees report thorough, accurate and unbiased accounts of anything from harassment, discrimination and bullying to health and safety issues to general misconduct in the workplace. The bot acts as a neutral third party, communicating between the company and the employee, who can choose to stay anonymous. HR departments can use the bot to ask follow-up questions or initiate investigations. Spot’s emphasis is on being an anonymous, safe, trusted way for employees to speak up that’s still actionable for HR.  

The hurdle

Spot has proved a 70-80% response rate in HR investigations compared to most other legacy tools, which get follow-up engagement rates of around 5-12%. “Our hypothesis was that people would be much more willing to speak up about issues if they didn’t have to talk directly to HR and could talk to a machine instead of a human. That has actually turned out to be right,” says Jessica Collier, CEO of Spot. Engagement rates and comparisons to similar products have shown that people trust the Spot bot. “It also helps companies attract and retain talent by emphasising psychological safety and showing their commitment to a diverse culture.”

But since harassment and misconduct can be a rarity in companies, it proves a challenge for the Spot business model: “We’re selling a product that has a lot of value but isn't used daily,” Collier explains.

Spot has tried to generate sales with free versions for individuals, who could then report incidences to their companies. “This hasn’t been as big a source of lead generation as we expected,” says Collier. “Our model is really a SaaS (software as a service) model, so companies buy one-year subscriptions to the tool.”

Collier and her team realised that no matter how much Spot wants to function as an independent tool for employees, it’s the employer who has to pay: “We have to rely on the company to do the right thing.”

The strategy

Spot has expanded on their existing mission by offering sexual harassment prevention training that ties to reporting: “Rather than having these odd siloed experiences, employees can go through mandated training while becoming comfortable with the platform that they're given to speak up.” Spot is in the works to release diversity and inclusion, unconscious bias, bullying, and micro-aggression training as well. 

Spot has also shifted its focus to demonstrate the value of their tool in numbers, not words. “We let employers know, based on our data, that X number of employees should use the bot based on their company size, and how that equates to about X number of dollars in legal risk that has been mitigated,” she explains. “If they're not seeing those numbers, it either means that the communication about the tool hasn't been sufficient or that there's something going on in their organisation where employees don't feel comfortable speaking up.”

Furthermore, the company has worked to establish a diverse clientele. “In the beginning, we thought that our target demographic was going to be tech companies in the growth stage, but there’s been a demand far outside that.” Today, Spot has customers in finance, healthcare, government and online retail, to name a few.

Lastly, current events such as COVID-19 and social justice movements have presented new challenges and opportunities for Spot, enabling them to create new tailored solutions. “There's a real movement in the direction to actually finally address harassment and discrimination based on race, colour and ethnicity,” says Collier. “We've become more experimental for industries that we know are really struggling. We’re offering trial contracts during reopenings to then be reevaluated three to four months later.”

Tips from the designer:

• Nurture customer diversity – Be open to different clients, while still thinking about how to corner particular markets.
• Lean on your data – While selling your mission and values are important, they don’t always translate to sales. Use tangible data to convince prospective clients that your solution isn’t only good for people, but also for business.
• Think holistically – Be open to the idea that your product shouldn’t stand alone. Think about what initiatives or services can be developed or used together to enhance usability and have greater impact.