retention buddy - karen kay yeungkarenkayyeung.com/files/2017-10-08 design process... · 17...

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Retention BuddyUser-centered Design Process

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Contents03 About04 My Role05 Design Process06 Empathize

07 Persona08 Define

09 Proof of Concept11 Flowchart12 Requirements Gathering

14 Ideate15 Sketches

16 Define and Refine17 Wireframes

37 Prototype and Test38 Paper Prototype40 User Feedback53 Development Build Usability Test

56 Results and Learnings57 Results58 Learnings

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AboutDetailsDate: June 2017Client: GreatCall, Inc. Platform: Web and Desktop Application

Situation• After 7 years of waiting, the Director of Customer Profitability got the green light to cre-

ate a tool that will provide agents with suggested customized offers to retain/save cus-tomers who call in to cancel.

• These customized offers will increase the chances of customers continuing with their recurring service plans. If successful, it would reduce churn and increase the companies revenues and profitability.

Obstacles• One of the toughest challenges faced on this project was that there was not enough de-

velopment resources. • This meant that there was not going to be subsequent versions of the tool. • As a result, stakeholders fought tooth and nail about what would go into the final design.

design goals

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My RoleTasks• I wireframed and updated the designs based on user, peer, and stakeholder feedback. • I gathered early feedback using paper prototypes.

Team• 1 UX Designer• 1 Graphic Designer• 1 Front-end Developer• 2 Back-end Developers• 1 QA• 1 Product Owner• 1 Training Personnel• 1 Director of Customer Profitability

Why I’m Proud of This ProjectSince this tool was only going to be developed once, stakeholders fought tooth and nail about what would go into the final design. I negotiated design tradeoffs, stood my ground on good design practices, and learned how to let things go. In addition, I advocated for early testing to quickly validate ideas and identify potential obstacles.

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Design Process

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EmpathizeStepped into the user’s shoes to understand their situation, problems, and feelings

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Jose Hernandez, Age 32Customer Care Agent

Jose has been a GreatCall Customer Care agent for about a year. He was originally an Aerotek temporary worker be-fore being hired on full-time. He is also an advocate of the 5Star service since his nana is a Lively Mobile customer.

Jose enjoys working at GreatCall and loves the team he gets to work with. However, he lives in Temecula, so his commute can put a strain on him. Although he likes work-ing his customers, sometimes their requests can put a toll on him. In addition, time is of the essence when he is on the phone. Jose is often asked to take on more calls than he can handle.

PAIN• Customers call to cancel due to one or more reasons (e.g.

cost, poor service area, death, form factor, wanting a compet-itor product, etc.)

• Wastes time trying to find the best offer for the customer.• The value advisor tab offers that non-applicable to the prod-

uct. It can be outdated or have none listed.

BEHAVIOR• Offers save suggestions out of order• Gets penalized for poor performance• Makes the same offer to every customer• Goes home wondering how well he performed rather than

knowing

GOALS• Increase number of saves• Know personal performance metric• Offer the right save suggestion on first attempt• Reduce time spent identifying the best offer• Decrease handle time• Avoid losing customers by not offering sufficient save value• Avoid making custome’s value negative by giving too high

save value

NEEDS• Customized, rank ordered list of save suggestions• To not offer the same unsuccessful offer again• Make data driven offers based on customer’s value and can-

cel reason(s)• Retention guidance• Track his personal performance

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DefineConducted a stakeholder interview to understand the proof of concept, gatherrequirements, and create a flowchart

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Requirements ChecklistGroup A� 5-level Customer Save Value Rating� Number of Total Saves to Date� Date of Last Save� Number of Days Past Due

Group B� Account Balance� Yes, No, N/A, or Other Values for the Self Purchased Question� Number of Years as a Customer� Name of Current Plan Option to Select Alternative Cancel Reason

Group C� Name of Next Better Plan� List of Current Paid VAS� List of Current Free VAS� Option to Select a Different Line of Service

Group D� Option to Select Whether It Was a Self Purchase or Not� Option to Select Why Customer Purchased� Option to Select Primary Cancel Reason� Option to Select Alternative Cancel Reason

Group E� Option to Select One or More Wants, Interests, and Needs� Ability to Get Save Suggestions for Customers Who Want to Cancel their Line of Service� Ability to Get Save Suggestions for Customers Who Want to Cancel One or More Value Added Service (VAS)� Ability to Indicate What Save Suggestion Was Offered First, Second, Third, Etc.

Group F� Ability to View Script for Save Offers� Ability to View Script for Final Disclosure� Option to Select Whether Customer was Saved, Cancelled, or Undecided� Option to Select What Save Suggestions were Not Offered, Accepted, or Declined

Group G� Ability to View Script for Save Offers� Ability to View Script for Final Disclosure� Option to Indicate Whether Customer was Saved, Cancelled, or Undecided� Ability to Switch Between the Upsell Options and Retention Suggestions

Group H - Nice to Have’s� Ability to Submit Feedback, Issues, and Suggestions � Ability to Copy and Paste OR Save an Automatically Generat-ed Journal Entry� Error Message When the Agent Does Not Offer Any Save Suggestions and Submits the Form� Instructions on How to Support Customers Affected by BDS Shut Down

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Follow-Up ItemsUser Interface Behavior� Agents can make multiple offers� Certain VAS need to be shown or hidden depending on the product and plan� Underlined acronyms show a tooltip with acronym definition upon click� Information under “Customer Snapshot” needs to be standard-ized for usabily and QA reasons. We need Renan and Kelly from Training to help with this.� We would like agents to be able to type into a text field and get autocomplete suggestions for cancel and purchase reasons� The “Undecided” dropdown menu option was asked to be put in by training. Agents believe that retention calls are either “saved” or “cancelled”. When customers do not make a decision, agents create a follow-up. Reporting does not need to use the “undecided” value.

Facts� 8% of all accounts have more than one line of service� Currently, the CostGuard api does not record the agents name. In the future (around 4/1/18), we might be able to support this.

General Questions� What is the agent’s bottom line?� Where do they get their personal stats from?

Development Questions� Will an agent lose their work if they were to switch tabs?� Will a pop-up (modal) interfere with the iFrame view?

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IdeateSketched to generate lots of ideas

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Define & RefineCreated black and white blueprints of theuser interface

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6/27/17 Version

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6/30/17 Version

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7/11/17 Version

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9/11/17 Version

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Define FurtherUsed wireframes to show user interaction

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Search for a customer

by using this field.

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Select the account

you want to view and make

changes to.

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Select the Value Advisor

Tab to access Retention

Buddy.

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When the user gets to

Retention Buddy, the

customer snapshot should

already be loading.

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Prototype & Test

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Paper Prototype TestWhy a paper prototype?• For this project, I made paper prototypes by simply printing out my mock-ups. A click-

able prototype was not used because the team was eager to start development. In ad-dition, the user researcher was not allocated to the project yet. I also wanted to spend time with the agents, so I can better understand their workflow.

Setup• Before I started testing the prototypes, I asked the agents to educate me on what retain-

ing customers was like. I told them to treat me like a new agent and to show me what has worked for them in the past. By going through this contextual inquiry, it helps me gain a better understanding of about what their jobs are like and problems they face.

• Then, I asked the agents to use the paper prototype to handle a pretend call with me.

Benefits• By getting user feedback early, I was able incorporate changes into the design. For ex-

ample, the agents told me they would like to see a script appear and a journal to be cre-ated, which was not part of the software requirements. However, adding it in would help with the average call handle time.

• In addition, I learned early one they would not use the tool to save value added services unless they received an incentive.

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Incorporated ChangesQuestion #1� Change the question to “Is the customer cancelling their Line of Service or VAS?” Both agents misunderstood Question #1 to be reasons why the customer is cancelling.

Question #2� Agent expected to see dropdown items, such as self or influ-encer.

Question #3� Rephrase the question to “Why did you need our product?” because it takes them back to when they first needed it. It helps with retention. Agent expect dropdown items, such as gift, emer-gency, safety, don’t have or need a cell phone, or other.

“Other” Option� Agent would like an “other” option, so they can type in other reasons why customer may have purchased or cancelled the device. Agent would also like to see for WIN. An example of this would be when the customer was with us before and wanted to come back because they loved the old phone.

Question #4� Add definitions to each WIN because checkbox options can be interpreted multiple ways. For example, “family” can be the family purchased the device for them. Or, they wanted to keep in touch with family.

Last 6 Months of Usage� Agent would like to see a hyperlink, which can be used to see the last 6 months of usage. Some customers say, “I never use the phone”, which is not a good excuse. So, the agent will view their usage history and try to find the real reason why they are cancelling.”

Save and Cancel Disclosures� Upon submission, agent expected to see “Save” and “Cancel” disclosures to pop-up (just like Journal Bug) once they selected that the customer was saved or cancelled.

Journal Integration� Upon submission, agent expected to see an option to copy and paste the journal.

Add Tenure� Add how long customer has been with GreatCall

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User Feedback

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Michelle WalshAerotek Temp (since 03/14/2016)GreatCall Employee (since 07/03/2016)

What do you think of the Value Advisor Tab?� “I like it, but sometimes it does not make sense.”

� “I find it weird when the Value Advisor Tab offers DRO to Lively with Health and Safety plans. In the “Offer” tab in Journal Bug, I write down “N/A” and I explain why it was not offered.”

� “Another example is Basic 19 with 5Star. I’m not going to offer it because it is not in the Value Advisor Tab. I also find it strange why minutes only plans do not offer Health and Safety services, since that is our bloodline.”

� “Usually, what I do is I ask for the account number, Jitterbug number, or home phone number, so I can set up my journal.”

� “If there are no offeres, I copy and paste the message, “no offfers” message to my journal.”

� “3/40 calls have had something to offer. I retain customers more than I upsell.”

� “The “show debug” message is not something I mess with. New agents are unsure about it.”

Joel SalinasGreatCall Employee (since 02/01/2017)

What do you think of the Value Advisor Tab?� “80% of the time, there are no offers. Customers also call so frequently that the offers have already been made.”

� “When there is one offer, we offer it. We try to bring it into the conversation. For example, for HRO, I would ask them, “have you dropped your phone before? You should protect your invest-ment.”

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What works when trying to retain a customer?� “ I need to know my bottom line. I need to know what is the last thing I can offer. This lets me know how much leeway I have. JBA has guidelines.”

� “Before, I would be robotic. I was saving at a 10% rate. Now, I’m around 20-50%. Last month, I was at 39.9%.”

� “The bottom line allows me to work from there. No one likes to be on hold while I go talk to my supervisor. They are already irritated and it leaves a bad taste in their mouth.”

� “You have to recognize that they are upset and be caring. If they cannot be saved, then you want them to feel like they can come back because it was not a hard experience to leave.”

� “I say, “We’re sorry you’re no longer part of the family. We’re here if you decide to come back.””

� “There has been a lot of bad press about defective products, which does not help.”

� “Tone of voice also helps. Don’t say, “oh shoot”. They can hear it in your voice, so you always need to stay upbeat. Smiling over the phone helps.”

� “I can skip question #2. It’s not a big deal. Question #3 is a big deal because you take them back to when they need it. It’s one of the keys to retention.”

� “Before, calls with customers trying to cancel due to death or hospice used to be difficult. Now, it’s not. Now, cancelling for other people is the hardest.”


What works when trying to retain a customer?� “22% of calls retaining customer have a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is usually scary. Customers are yelling at us. In the middle, it’s a lot more comfortable. You’re trying to find a solution at this state.”

� “What helped a lot was listening to my peers on their calls. Everyone has their own style and personality.”

� “It also helps to not be serious and stressed out. It helps to put yourselves in their shoes.”

� “Asking questions helps. For example, a customer might be frustrated that the device is not working. Sometimes, the user is the reason why it is not working well. The customer might not have pressed and hold to turn the device on.”

� “What does not work is offering $5. They feel insulted. Training has mentioned this. Irrational solutions, such as migrations, does not work. For example, we might reduce a rate plan for a cus-tomer who will be in Canada for 6 months. They pay $10/month for 6 months and keep paying for it.”

� “50% of the time, it depends on their mood. They might have kept the number for so long that they will stay.”

� “You can escalate the issue if you promise to call back and then do not.”

� “The difference between password and passphrase is a huge issue.”

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What are some reasons why customers cancel?� Cost / Can’t afford it� Confusing� Data usage� Tech. issues� Unresolved� Resolved (meaning, GreatCall replaced the device 5x, but it is still not working)� Lived alone� Still drive� Fall history� Medical condition makes them unsteady and prone to falls� Everyone else has one (smartphone)� Other (with box to explain)


What are some reasons why customers cancel?� Cost� Death� Cell phone service not working� Medical� Delayed porting� Hospice� Other (with box to explain)

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What are your thoughts on the LOS form?� “Is it a requirement to offer every one of them? Some custom-er stop after 2 offers.”

� “I like the “date of last save”. It helps me determine what I can offer to them”

� “I like being able to move offers up or down because another item might be more applicable.”

� “Awesome that I can see the script. I am not strong with Check-in Calls. I will usually grab a job aid to help with that.”

� “It’s great that I can see what was offered.”


What are your thoughts on the LOS form?� Agent thought the user interface of Retention Buddy can be overwhelming. Agents might run into the issue of overpitching offers, which might frustrate the customer. Agent was unsure whether more than one offer can be made.

� Agent liked the “saves to date”. It eliminates the need to think if the customer is trying to swindle you.

� “Currently, what I do is start low and work up. If it is greater than $50, I ask for my supervisor’s approval. The $50 allowance is something I have to calculate myself. I would not know other-wise if I went over my limit.”

� Agent expected to see how many minutes are being offered to the customer.

� Agent liked seeing the customer snapshot box at the top.

� Agent suggests the dropdown menu to automatically switch to “save” after an offer was accepted.

� Agent expect to see save or cancel disclosures if “accept” or “declined” was selected.

� “Moving items above the line is messy. Non-offered items should stay below. I think the accepted and declined items should be differentiated. How about color coding what has been accepted or declined to prevent offering it again to the customer? Order and color does not matter to me.”

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What are your thoughts on the LOS form? (Continued)� Agent found the “undecided” dropdown option confusing since it is a rare instance. The agent’s current behavior would be to create an alert in CostGuard or write it down on a notepad to re-mind themselve to check back with the customer. In the agent’s opinion, it is clear whether the customer was saved or not. Also, the agent does not want to redo their journals. Disclosures are not read when the account was neither saved or cancelled.


What are your thoughts on the LOS form? (Continued)� “I would avoid selecting “undecided”. I think I will not get paid if I were to select it. For instance, a customer might be saved, but they still need to talk to a family member about it.”

� Agent thought Retention Buddy was awesome. Agent likes that it tells you what to do in 1-2-3 steps. The agent thought it helped refresh memory about what can be offered.

� Agent understood tabs that show which number you want to retain.

� Agent understood that suggestions are based on input. Agent expected something to appear to the right.

� “I can see Retention Buddy dumbing down or sharpening agents.”

� “Question #1 should list VAS, LOS, and minutes only.”

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What are your thoughts on the VAS form?� “It’s awesome that I can determine LOS or VAS. However, I don’t deal with VAS a lot. It’s downsizing the Health and Safety services.”


What are your thoughts on the VAS form?� “VAS is a weird option.”

� “Will I get a credit for saved VAS? I get paid $10 for every line of service saved. I think I will get paid $0 for saving a VAS.”

� “The VAS form is missing DRO, HRO, voicemail, and call waiting. To see a complete list, go to CostGuard > Point of Sale > Make Sale > Modify Service > Change VAS > See List.”

� “Why is there a VAS form? There is no incentive to save VAS. I wouldn’t stress about it. I wouldn’t use the form. I would rather go into the childrens under the Services tab, right click the item, and disconnect it. Then, notate it in journals. This saves time.”

� “DRO is for Lively Mobile. HRO is for mobile handsets.”

� “The error messages are frustrating.”

� Question #3: “I’m unsure what to click. For example, if I have a customer in a home and they do not need MedCoach, what am I supposed to click? How about for a MyWorld customer who is using it as a source of entertainment? What are the WINs for that?”

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What are your thoughts on the customer profitability rating?� “I’m not sure what the customer profitability rating does for us. We are not concerned. We can care less. We always save any-body and everybody. I’d rather not see it because it is detrimen-tal. A customer with 3-dollar signs can become a customer with 4-dollar signs. I would recommend keeping derogatory things out. Some agents struggle with retention. They have to get good and confident.”

� “Wow. I like the page with the zero-dollar signs. It is awesome. I love that you can just cancel. People are always wasting my time. Zero-dollar sign customers would be the customers who call every 3 months to try to get something free. These custom-ers know the system.”

� “I only want to see customers marked with zero-dollar signs. I will treat customers with 1-dollar sign and up the same.”


What are your thoughts on the customer profitability rating?� “The customer snapshot is missing tenure. The dollar signs help a lot. To me, it represents tenure. A customer with a lot of dollar signs likes the company and will say yes to offers made. I think it also indicates how much they are paying for on their bill. A customer with two dollar signs have low profitability and has been with the company for under 2 months. One-dollar sign means they will refuse everything. Zero-dollar signs mean they just activated and are unpredictable.”

� “I think non-profitable customers are the ones who have been with us for under a month. They did not make us any money. I did not know what it meant at first.”

� “The zero-dollar sign page is setting up yourself to cancel. It tells me that the company has given up on this customer. I think this can be the case for a customer who has a $14.99 plan with a $5 discount. I would like to know what they are paying every month. There is always something that I can offer.”

� “The messaging on the zero-dollar sign page is negative. There are no suggestions for you, which is okay. It tells me that the computer was not smart enough to come up with sugges-tions. I am incentivized to save the customer. If the computer cannot figure it out, then it motivates me to figure it out.”

“The zero-dollar sign page should explain why I should not save the customer. Otherwise, I would assume there is not coverage or that the customer costs more to keep. If there is not explana-tion on the page, I expect to see an input field, which I can use to type in the reason why the customer is not worth saving. For example, they have network issues, an 888 number, their num-ber did not port, or they have a tin roof.”

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What do you think will happen after form submission?� “Will there be a Journal Bug Saves Tab integration? Currently, it has to be filled out. We have to get the MDN from CostGuard’s Services tab. In Journal Bug, we do not use the port-out require-ment or cancel order checkboxes. We do read the saves dis-clousre.”

� Agent says that without integration, they will be inputing the same information in three places: 1) Retention Buddy, 2) Journal Bug, 3) CostGuard Journals.


What do you think will happen after form submission?� Agent expected to see “Save Disclosure” script.

� Expected automatic journal entry to be saved in CostGuard once “Submit” button is selected

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What are your thoughts on the personal stats?� “The personal stats is not good for the money part.”

� “I love numbers. It’s good for those “shitty days”, when you feel like you can’t save a thing. It’s great positive reinforcement.”

� “If the stats were to go down, I will be okay with it. But, a lot of people will freak out about retention.”


What are your thoughts on the personal stats?� “The stats are easy to read. However, it makes me feel judged right away. I feel like I’m getting instant supervisor feedback. I can see how it can be positive reinforcement. However, if I see an all-time low, I can see it bring down morale. Agents will see it and think that it’s not going to be a good day. It will affect the next few calls they receive. I can see it as a way to provide immediate coaching. For example, it could have a message that says, “go see supervisor”, which can be good if the call was fresh on your mind. It can also be a way to offer retention advice. If the customer cancelled, I would expect to see words of en-couragement. I would see a manual type in field to explain why the customer cancelled.”

� “Are stats under a certain percentage?”

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What are your thoughts on the feedback form?� “Most people do not care. Newer agents just want to make sure they are doing things right. There are too many other things to care about.”


What are your thoughts on the feedback form?� “I like the feedback form if they will keep my suggestions in consideration. If they replied to me personally, I would use it. Otherwise, I would feel like they did not listen to me at all.”

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Questions Asked:� “How do you distinguish devices?”

� “How do you verify the line of service?”

� “Are these personal stats unverified? Currently, we fill out a form to get our saves validated. If it is invalid, we can dispute it with management. After each month, we give these forms to Honey Moreno in Carlsbad. She looks at whether the VAS or Saves gets credited twice a month. ”


Questions Asked:� “What happens when another agent gets the same customer? It is useful to know what the last agent offered to the customer. It will prevent us from sounding like we’re not knowledgeable over the phone. Repeating the same offer to customers is not good.”

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Other Learnings:� Agent has a tendency to overjournal.

� GreatCall team used to have a retention team. They are think-ing about reforming it. “Nobody likes it. It gets depressing. Peo-ple complain all the time. I would join it if Justin Garza was lead-ing it because he is the Retention King. Him and Robert Egstad.”

� Agent would offer “better rate plan” to lower the account bal-ance rather than “free minutes”.

� Agents do not have any control over what type of call they will be getting. They handle calls regarding basic troubleshooting, rate plan changes, information updates, retention, and upsell.


Other Learnings:� “Retention Buddy is similar to the “Saves” tab on Journal Bug, just more detailed. The information is clustered.”

� “I constantly need to translate the customer words to what I can select in the dropdown menu. I think manually typing in is better than a dropdown.”

� “Jitterbug J is considered as the “golden phone”. When cus-tomers change to flip (JB5) or Lively, they hate it because the battery keeps dying.”

� “There is no job aid for what offers you can offer. We memo-rize what can be offered, use the ADVISE method, and think on our toes. It feels like a reversed sale. I am reselling the item to them, but it’s an uphill battle. I’m the salesman at the door.”

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Testing the BuildAbout• When the user researcher’s time freed up, she tested a development build of Retent

Buddy. It had a majority of the tool’s components, but had dummy data in place.

Top 3 Findings• We learned that call center agents thought the tool was straightforward. However, they

showed mistrust towards the tool when it showed invalid offers.

• One interesting thing we learned was that call center agent were used to cluttered user interfaces and did not mind if the screen looked “busy”. We were originally worried about the large amount of information being laid out on a very small screen real estate. Hearing this feedback made us reconsider diving the process into a wizard-like flow.

• We also found that agents were particular about the labels. For example, instead of the label “safety device”, they wanted the brand name of the product.

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ParticipantsRetention Team Agents• Participants came from a team that was devoted to retaining customers. • They were asked to go through the development build and review wireframes of two po-

tential journal history designs.

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Agents thought this design did not provide

enough information about each journal

entry. They said they needed to know

because customers may call multiple times

in a single day.

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Results & Learnings

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ResultsThis tool has not been released onto the call center floor yet. In addition, it will take time for the tool to learn and predict what are the best retention offers to provide.

ExpectationsOnce released, we expect the following outcomes:• $600,000 a year in revenue (based on a 1% churn reduction with 75% probability

averaged over 5 years and using a 10% discount rate• 180% 5 year average ROI• $2,798,000 Benefits (5 year discounted)

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LearningsThe Importance of Cross-functional CollaborationOne lesson that I have relearned from working on Retention Buddy is that it is always im-portant to include developers and QA in the design process.

On this project, they provided a lot of insight as to how they were going to use the form I was creating to model their data. In addition, the design sessions help them research on what to code early on. It also helped the QA tester understand what to expect from the UI behavior.

Learning Who Gets Final SayAnother lesson I learned from working on Retention Buddy is who gets final say on the project. Typically, it is the product owner. However, on this project, the Director of Custom-er Profitability was the sponsor, which gave her final say.

Executives

Directors or Sponsors

Product Owners

Users, Designers, Developers, and Everyone Else

retention buddy - karen kay yeungkarenkayyeung.com/files/2017-10-08 design process... · 17...

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