Airtel is one of the 3 leading telcos in India and serves more than 460Mn customers which is roughly 33% of the Indian population. The network has presence across the country and hence this calls for giving a fair choice to its customers to relocate their connections when they are themselves moving.
OBJECTIVE
I was tasked with building an app-experience where users can place single request to shift their one or more movable connections - fiber (broadband), DTH (TV), xsafe (security cameras)- in a hassle-free manner, and take them wherever they go.
This would ensure continuity of relationship for Airtel with its customers, thereby eliminating churn.
CURRENT CHALLENGES
There already existed a legacy experience for shifting a broadband connection on the app but that suffered some gross challenges:
89%
dropped outs
from current journey
48%
dissatisfied shifted customers
who churn out in 2 months of shifting
23%
churn outs
leading to loss of revenue of ₹657/month per user
>1
requests to be raised
for shfiting multiple connections to same location
RESEARCH
The full fledged research plan sketched by UX Research partners demanded 2 months time which was not feasible due abysmal churn numbers and need to go to market soon. So I conducted a week-long user interviews to understand user pain points and context better.
Research focused on talking to 3 types of cohorts:
People who have recently shifted their connection
People who dropped off midway from current shifting journey
People who are planning to shift
research questions and voice of customers
research insights
DEFINING METRIC
<24h
Time to Serve
serving 80% of shifting-in users within 24 hours of raising request.
<₹210M
Business Cost
Reducing the annual business cost of ~₹210 Mn incurred due to support calls for shifting.
<0.3%
Broadband Churn
Reduce overall broadband churn by 0.3% which is due to shifting.
>1
Connections Shifting Requests
Introduce single shifting request capability for DTH and xSafe too and monitor # of multi-service shift request.
PRINCIPLES
Reuse existing patterns
There should be same interaction pattern to do same thing in different app journeys. Introduce new patterns only where necessary.
When teams work independently, this aspect usually gets missed.
More work by system, less by user
System should be intelligent enough to deduce system relevant information by least information from the user.
Tailor the experience to be short and intelligent basis user's context.
Conversational experience
From research, it was clear that context of people shifting houses is prone to be worrisome. And they look for human-like assistance.
So the app journey should feel like a conversation with the executive- crisp and clear.
Modular & scalable
As Airtel grows, new businesses get added.
Framework should be scalable to fit DTH and xSafe and any new line of business in future and modular to adapt the experience to user's context.
EXPLORATIONS
How might we capture the new address of the user where they would be shifting?
Approach #1
Manual address capture
Pros: Quick go-to-market time
Challenge:
If the address feasibility for fiber serviceability at new location has to be done manually by the internal support team, the turnaround time (TAT) to serve the customer increases by at least 48 hours. And the customers who hear back of non-serviceability after this long wait express huge dissatisfaction due to wasted time amidst their already chaotic shifting context.
-
high turnaround time
-
frustrated customer
-
high business cost due to manual labour
Approach #2
Automatic fiber availability address module
Pros: Adhered to principles set- being reused from other airtel app journeys; system automatically checks the fiber availability reducing turnaround time
Challenge:
Experience of this module needs to be redefined to improve it and eliminate false negatives, hence increased go-to-market time.
Address form does not capture the missing address information that’s not part of lat-long of GPS info in pin on the map. This lead to to-and-fro of call backs to confirm address from customers
-
increased go-to-market time
When in journey do we ask new address?
Approach #2i
New address capture as first step
1. Start flow with asking the new address as first step.
2. Exit right from here if the address is not serviceable
Cons:
-
Eligibility check is required only for broadband and not for DTH and xSafe. So system would not know this until connections are selected.
-
If the connection is ineligible for shifting, due to non-payment, then taking address is useless information until connection becomes eligible.
Approach #2ii
Connection selection as first step
1. Start flow with asking the connection/s to be shifted as first step
2. then use address feasibility only in case of broadband is to be shifted.
Pros:
-
DTH and xSafe would not require calling fiber availability module.
-
Ineligible connections are shown upfront and can not enter the flow.
Approach #2ii was chosen
Automatic fiber availability address module with connection selection as first step
We agreed to deliver seamless experience and not develop throwaway experiences and not let ineligible users enter the journey
USER TESTING
After finalizing the approach, I did the complete journey in mid-fidelity wireframes and quickly released it to Maze test it. And it brought us some great revelations.
8
total testers
13.9s
average time to completion
(task: raise request for shifting broadband)
2.8/5
ease of experience
(1: very easy, 5: very difficult)
qualitative comments
A FEW ITERATIONS
Incorporating user feedbacks and stakeholder comments, many iterations for different interactions were explored which lead to refining the whole experience. The decision making was based on the set principles.
Interaction #1
Selecting type of shifting
❌ user testing: what is same address?
❌ system should automatically detect change of city.
❌ visually unbalanced, no explanation of options.
❌ too verbose, cognitive load
❌ descriptors same as headers in ingresses
✅ descriptive ingresses: visual explanation along with stepper explaining each flow
Interaction #2
Appointment booking
❌ date selection and change involves multiple clicks
❌ not upfront view of date range. time slot list would need to be scrolled when it becomes long
❌ information hierarchy too scattered
✅ modular, scalable and easy one-click interactions.
Interaction #3
Selecting connections
❌ no clear call out of lines of business
❌ no information about which connection belongs to which address
❌ confusion about single-select and multi-select interaction
✅ clearly indicates selection of one address and clear demarcation of lines of business
FINAL DESIGNS
After wireframing for all user stories and multiple rounds of feedbacks with product, business and engineering stakeholders, and rounds of UX content improvements and Visual Design, this is how the final experience looked like.
Key Elements
Spot change
Earlier users couldn't change spot of router in same house. This is now offered, and for free.
Estimated charges
Charges felt unjustified to users and were not revealed during placing request. This estimated amount and clear breakup brings transparency and changes with user's context.
Modular plan widget
Any changes to current plan, if they happen due to unavoidable reasons are clearly communicated on Review page, with aid of color signifiers.
Connection status
Calling out action pending or ineligibility for connections which can't shift right at the start of journey.
Visuals & Prototypes
Shifting to new address
Shifting at current address
TAKEAWAYS
-
A prototype is worth 100 meetings. When stakeholders don’t see the challenge with suboptimal approach, it’s best to explain it to them by prototyping the worst and the best approach. Same worked here too when stakeholders were so fixed on going out with manual address collection approach.
-
Talking to users onboards you to their context and pain points much better than relying on second hand data and just analytics. It’s a very good immersion to start with even if the full fledged research is not on the cards.
NEXT STEPS
-
Set to release to 100% users by Dec 2022. It is currently under development for Broadband and would be go live to reduce churn due to shifting on priority and reduce massive cost due to support calls.
-
Expand journey for DTH and xSafe. Once it goes live for broadband, the same framework will be adapted for other Airtel services too, so that users can place single request for all services or have consistent experience for any single service.