Leads2b · 2026
Smart Badge
Turning in-store conversations into coaching.
Context
Sales teams in retail stores and field sales have no record of what happens in a conversation with a customer. Managers coach by gut feeling, and what the best sellers do never reaches the rest of the team.
Smart Badge is a wearable badge that captures in-person conversations. AI evaluates each one against the company's own sales model and gives the seller feedback right after the conversation ends.
My role
I led the product end to end. I designed the physical product and the mobile (seller and manager) and web apps, and I ran the field research myself.
Instead of stopping at static screens, I prototyped in code with AI (Claude Code, Cursor), so decisions were tested with real interactions. Part of what is in production today I shipped together with engineering, with AI built into the design process.
Approach
Before designing anything new, I went to where the product is used. I visited stores and field-sales teams and talked with sellers and managers while they used the badge in their daily routine.
Field research
The value of the product was clear: sellers wanted to see their score and what to improve as soon as a conversation ended, and managers followed performance on their phones. What broke the experience was setup and daily use, not the idea.
Findings
The button was hard to press and gave no tactile feedback. The lights had a high cognitive load. There was no clear device status for pairing, sync and battery. Managers didn't know what was being evaluated. And users wanted to turn it on and forget it, instead of remembering to press a button for every conversation.
Decisions
A new hardware prototype with better ergonomics and a tactile button. Device status and battery telemetry in the app. An explainable score per criterion, with Smart Coach telling the seller what to improve. Guided pairing in 3 steps and video tutorials, replacing the printed manual. And privacy by default: recordings are visible only to the seller unless the company grants access, with no voice biometrics.
Gamification
In the field, adoption depended on a manager pushing the team to use the badge. So I designed a habit loop for the seller: daily missions with a chest that opens when they are done, a focus trail built from the company's own evaluation model, experience points, a weekly league where the top sellers move up, and badges for skills they master, like calling the customer by name. The goal is for the seller to want to use the badge every day, not only when someone asks.
The Final Product
One connected experience across three surfaces: the badge, the mobile app and the web panel. The web panel shows the network score, performance by group and every evaluated conversation. In the app, the seller gets feedback after each conversation, a focus trail, daily missions, the league and badges, while the manager follows the team's score, conversion and ticket on the shop floor.
Outcomes
Smart Badge became a new product vertical for Leads2b that already generates new recurring revenue, with customers in retail and agribusiness.
3
Surfaces designed: hardware, mobile and web
NEW
Product vertical with recurring revenue
2
Markets with customers: retail and agribusiness
PRIVATE
Recordings by default, to protect the seller