Dashboard Transformation
Turning Paycor’s #1 Sales Objection Into a Competitive Advantage
Role: Director of Product Design
Partners: Product Management, Engineering, Sales Leadership, Marketing
Impact: Flipped UI/UX from our top sales objection into a deal-closer, win rate climbed from 26% to 64%
Our dashboard was costing us deals. Not occasionally, but consistently. Quarter after quarter, prospects cited our UI/UX as a reason to walk away, calling it “clunky,” “dated,” and “hard to navigate.” Users bypassed the homepage entirely, heading straight to the modules that actually helped them work. The landing experience had become a liability, and we needed to turn it around fast.
How We Approached It
We resisted the pressure to “just make it look modern.” Instead, we led with research. We analyzed lost deals with Sales and testing with customers. The insight — people didn’t want a prettier dashboard, they wanted one that understood their role and got them to their work faster.
We validated directions before building anything. Users strongly preferred separating “My Team” from “Myself” tasks (92% preference) and wanted customization without the complexity of traditional dashboard tools.
Then we built cross-functional ownership through design thinking workshops and working sessions, keeping leadership in the loop the whole way. So when decisions came fast, everyone already understood the why.
What Changed
Within the same fiscal year, we reversed the perception entirely. On deals where UI/UX was a deciding factor, win rate climbed from 26% to 64% — with roughly 367% more revenue from won deals and about a third fewer losses tied to interface concerns. Prospects went from calling our interface “dated” to praising it as “clean,” “intuitive,” and “modern.”
“Overall, Paycor has a very clean look and feel. It just looks cleaner and more flexible. That’s what I’m looking for.”
What I Learned
Invest in understanding early, move faster later — the upfront research prevented expensive rebuilds and political battles. And relationships beat process docs: the ownership we built in those workshops made every decision afterward easier.