Sky On Demand sales journey

I was the senior UX designer responsible for the online customer journeys to support Sky's upcoming launch for the 'On Demand' proposition. This impacted all areas across sky.com including sales, support, account management and products. 

While simple in its core message, the proposition itself was centred around customers connecting their Sky+ box to a broadband router, and doing so required differing activities dependent on what equipment a customer had. Their subscription package would also affect what on demand content was accessible. I was responsible for ensuring this was communicated in a coherent, simple way that made 'getting' on demand intuitive and painless for customers.

Tasks undertaken:

  • Audit of Anytime+ across Products, Shop, Account management, Help & Support
  • Led workshops to determine business requirements
  • Creating new sales journeys incorporating 'on demand' setup options to help new customer get connected and set up for on demand from the outset
  • Defining upgrade path for existing customers who need a new Sky box, capable of receiving on demand content
  • Collaborating with visual design to mockup high fidelity user journeys
  • Using customer research and user testing to refine content and customers journeys
  • Working with development team to implement upgrade journeys

Visit: sky.com/ondemand

 

 

Introduce a friend rewards

I was tasked with improving the 'Introduce a friend' journey on sky.com, as the business was receiving a high level of complaints from unhappy customers, who claimed they'd introduced a friend but hadn't received the associated reward voucher (typically a £50 M&S voucher) for doing so. Newly signed up customers were similarly dissatisfied at not receiving their selected reward when joining Sky.

Interestingly, some areas of the business interpreted the reduced number of vouchers being shipped as a 'success' because it resulted in a lower cost of sale - so there was some inclination to avoid making changes to the journey. I was able to explain how this approach was ultimately a false economy, as the business would go on to spend more than it 'saved' when handling the resulting complaints (often the business would honour the reward voucher even if legally it didn't have to) in addition to creating a poor first experience for new customers - a time which should be full of excitement at the start of their relationship with the Sky brand.

So why were customers not receiving their rewards? We could rule out postal errors as the rewards are sent via signed for delivery.

What data do we have? I requested a review of the customer orders for those customers who we knew had called to say they'd not received their vouchers. What became apparent was in many cases a customer's order did not have a reward appended to the order, or the order itself would not be eligible for a reward.

We also knew the journey had recently been revamped with the 'reward selection' task being placed right upfront to draw attention to the rewards on offer (enticing) and help make sure customers selected a reward in the first place. This approach had led to more people selecting a voucher, but it was evident from the complaints that customers were not receiving them.

Research findings - I proposed some small scale lab testing to observe users follow the current introduce a friend journey. During these sessions I found it was not uncommon for participants to reach the checkout stage without a reward in their basket, despite beginning their journey by selecting a reward. 

Hypothesis - Based on the data and observations I felt it was likely the scenario seen repeatedly in testing was taking place in the real word. Customers were selecting a reward to start with, but during the product configuration step it was being removed from the basket - typically because a customer would play about with different selections, which could result in them becoming ineligible for the reward. Once the reward was removed from the basket, it was lost completely and a customer would need to restart the journey to add it back in. Even if a customer's final selection was eligible for the reward, it would not return to the basket. 

Customers were not aware of the reward having been removed, so were proceeding on the basis it was still attached to their order (given that they'd selected it in the previous step). Only when they didn't receive a reward - typically a few weeks later - did they start to question it, often to be told a reward was never processed in the first place.

Objective - ultimately the business wanted to reduce the effort handling complaints from customers who felt cheated they hadn't received their selected reward. Additionally, the marketing and sales team were keen to provide a positive experience for customers joining Sky. 

Proposed solution - it was clear the solution required more clarity around rewards, particularly prior to the crucial stage where a customer progressed through to checkout (payment).

I proposed a revised journey with reward selection taking place nearer the end, rather than at the beginning of the product selection process, which I felt offered a number of advantages:

1. Customer starts by selecting the product they want, rather than the reward - this reflects the traditional buying process, where the product is the starting point. The business can also surface pre-selected bundles which it wishes to promote, giving the customer a useful overview of the product options.  

2. Intelligent product configuration - if at any point the customer;s selection voids eligibility for a reward, a prompt explaining this is displayed. The customer can void their last selection to retain eligibility, or proceed without a reward.

3. Mandated offer selection page - if a customer proceeds with a configuration that is not eligible for a reward, the offer selection page is still displayed in the purchase process. Ordinarily at this point the customer would select their reward, but in the scenario where no reward is possible, the page makes it clear they will not be entitled to a voucher based on what's currently in their basket. The customer is invited either to proceed to checkout with an understanding they are not eligible for a reward, or return to select a bundle that entitles them to a reward.

I felt re-enforcing offer eligibility in this way was especially important in the context of the 'Introduce a friend' (IAF) journey, as the main reason a customer was joining Sky through IAF was most likely for the associated reward (there's no other obvious benefit - the products are identical to what's on offer through the online shop). Because customers would expect to receive their reward, I wanted to call out any action they'd need to take to qualify for it.

Outcome - After testing and releasing to a percentage of users (for phased implementation) the new journey delivered greater customer satisfaction and we saw a significantly increased number of orders coming through with selected rewards. We were able to track the user journeys to ensure orders where no reward was appended had involved an explicit customer choice to proceed while being ineligible for a reward. Complaints have reduced as customers now have much clearer visibility over reward eligibility, and are less likely to make changes to their product configuration that unknowingly cause the offer to drop from their basket.

Visit: sky.com/introduceafriend

 

Yell.com business

Lead UX on launch of new marketing centre on Yell Business, an destination for small and medium sized businesses for free marketing advice, opinion and support.

This site came about as a means to engage customers with Yell's portfolio of products; traditionally Yellow Pages print advertising but more recently including SEO expertise, social media management, bespoke websites and a presence on Yell.com. 

The concept was impartial advice to help businesses reach more customers and land more sales. Where relevant, Yell would provide information about products that could be beneficial.

A mixture of videos, blogs, how-to-guides and opinion pieces were commissioned; I was responsible for the IA and page layout, creating a modular system that included hub pages, article pages and navigation areas to browse between topics.

I worked directly with the product owner responsible for delivering this piece of work, we had daily standups with the development team delivering the work to prioritise new features and track progress.  The marketing centre has continued to help Yell's customers reach more of their customers, by sharing successful strategies and showcasing relevant tools to help increase reach.   

Visit: business.yell.com/knowledge

 

Open to Export

Partnership with UK Trade & Industry and Yell to foster a community between UK exporters.

Site orientated around these activities:

  • Encouraging collaboration
  • Putting businesses in touch with people and organisations who can help
  • Forums
  • Experts
  • Knowledge exchange

Visit: opentoexport.com