Lean UX

Sky - customer product support flows

I worked closely with the product owner responsible for online help and support to devise a new format for self-service content, to help customers solve issues without needing to resort to calling customer services.

The initial proposal was to take existing support journeys from the contact centre and make them available online. This approach did not test well as it was clear the information was structured around having someone talk the customer through the required steps (i.e. a customer service representative) whereas the objective was for customers to follow help instructions independently.

Tasks I undertook included a landscape analysis to examine tools and approaches that could be useful to help customers self-serve, prototypes to inform the most suitable format for presenting gated content based on user input, and devising simple feedback mechanisms to allow the team to gain further insight into issues and suggestions customers have for us.

Working in a lean way meant much of my time was spent in a consultative capacity, working directly with developers, visual design, a copywriter and analytics guru to refine the experience through MVT testing. Our goal was to provide clear, simple instructions which were easy for customers to find and follow.

Throughout the project I was an advocate of:

Using customer data to prioritise effort - for example we focused on the journey that was relevant for customers with a Sky+ HD box first as this represented the most significant number of TV customers.
Tracking usage and customer journeys - we found there was often a large spike in traffic to the no satellite signal pages when the UK experienced bad whether. As the steps we'd ask a customer to carry out typically involved fiddling around with cables and carrying out multiple checks, it meant customers were doing this when ultimately the problem was just the weather. To prevent customers wasting time unnecessarily, I introduced a weather warning prior to starting the flow, and the development team plugged into an weather forecast API that enabled us to display a more prominent message in cases of known bad weather which would be likely to affect the satellite signal.
Using multi-variant testing (MVT) to determine what content our customers were most engaged with and provided better outcomes.
Looping customer feedback directly into design iterations - for example at the start of the project we took the decision to use line drawings to communicate steps in a process as this format tested best in terms of providing clarity and allowing non-relevant information to be stripped out from an image. This formed the basis of the visual style for Help. In our comments however we found some customers were having difficulty choosing their model of equipment as the line drawings in this context were too vague (showing an outline, without colour or texture) which was making it harder to discern a specific Sky box. We introduced photos of each model to address this and found there was no adverse feedback, and there was a reduction in customers returning to the 'box selection' page.

Box selection

Line drawings - customers told us it was hard to determine which box model was theirs.

Box selection

Photos replacing line drawings for product selection, following customer insight in this specific context.

Line drawings

Line drawings tested well when used to explain detailed instructions and draw attention to specific activities.

Mapped out journeys

Wireframes arranged into a flow for session with stakeholders

Flow framework

Framework devised from user testing and landscape analysis; solutions arranged based on propensity to succeed and filtered out based on customer selection.

Upfront weather information

Introduced at the beginning of the flow to prevent customers unnecessarily following further instructions.

Smart weather alert

Based on the customer's local weather forecast, a severe weather alert is displayed to discourage the customer from following the instructions unless necessary.

Organising content into a linear flow (from a customer perspective) was the result of exhaustive lab testing which included contextual enquiry. Customers appreciated the up-front questions which helped filter down the possible solutions to their problem, and could then gear themselves up for following the instructions when presented to them. The flow increased a customer's propensity to try more solutions, compared to the previous system that relied on the customer navigating to a different article to try a different approach. The flow provided a single destination which a customer could reliably come irrespective of their scenario.

This approach to product support has been extended to cover new journeys which experience high volumes in the call centre, such as fixing broadband problems and setting up Sky On Demand.

UX skills: Competitor analysis, Contextual studies, Prototypes, Wireframes, Agile

Visit: sky.com/nosignal

SKY - Smart diagnostics

When Sky launched their flagship Hub router, I was responsible for creating a new level of customer experience intended to take advantage of its groundbreaking capabilities. The objective was to be able to offer and provide support, even where a customer was unaware they were experiencing a problem.

This capability was derived from the Hub's ability to monitor its performance and Sky's ability to analyse it when a customer visited our site. This was the first time myself and the development team had worked on a project like this, so a significant portion was spent understanding what data was available to us, and whether the interpretation of the data was reliable enough to be able to make accurate predictions (there is minimal value in exposing an issue to a customer if we can't be sure it's an issue or what the solution may be..!).

I was also keen to investigate the customer reaction to pre-emptive monitoring in this way; testing suggested customers welcomed the advice - but an important distinction was made about how it was communicated.

Customer journeys

Overview of trigger points for customer diagnostics

Pre-emptive help - wireframe

Wireframe outlining an approach for how to message a customer to let them know we've identified an issue with their broadband.

Pre-emptive help - demo

Visual design applied to proposed treatment, visible in production environment through close collaboration with development team.

Early design mockups showed warning messaging which acted as a blocker to the customer's current browsing experience, forcing their attention to the alert which explained something had been found which needed fixing. A much softer approach was favoured by participants, leading to language which talked about 'improving' rather than 'fixing' functionality, and a more flexible approach to positioning the message on the screen, so that a customer browsing general help categories would not be stopped in their tracks with an alert that required immediate focus.

For this project I worked closely with editorial, visual design and development teams to craft an experience which rapidly progressed through iterations based on user testing and input from the Hub team. For example, we were able to put the functionality on the live site to get a realistic indication of how long it took to receive and analyse the data coming from customers' Hubs. As the request for data was sent when customers hit the Help landing page, we were finding many customers had already selected a piece of content to view before the analysis was complete - so the subsequent alert was never being seen. To address this, I worked directly with the visual design team to craft a new form of alert that could appear on a content page, so customers could still benefit from the analysis and take action if they wished.

To create an end-end customer experience I drafted a contact strategy to follow up with customers who'd engaged with the prompt to improve their broadband. As it's possible to monitor the performance of the Hub it would be possible to determine whether following the instructions led to any change - and if not a Sky engineer could visit the customer for a more detailed assessment. Sky can also use this information to improve the product as well as the support - for example if we know customer have particular trouble understanding a step or carrying out a particular activity, we can focus on providing clearer instructions and - where possible - feed this into actual product improvements. Most recently this has influenced the way microfilters are packaged (pre-plugged in) and the introduction of colour coding around the ports to make setup simpler.

YELL.COM - BUSINESS INFORMATION PAGES

Project to introduce more content (photos, videos, website, opening hours, reviews) for each business listing, following a company-wide change in strategy. Previously, Yell charged businesses a premium to display extra content, but in light of Google's business model and increasing dominance maintaining this approach was unsustainable.

I was responsible for adapting Yell's search results to surface multimedia content - and provide dedicated business information pages which housed the full set of content a business provided us with.

I worked closely with the product owner, visual design team and developers to introduce new content types on the site, along with an updated editing system which allowed business owners to provide and manage the data associated with their listing.

Sky - Enhanced e-billing

Project to help customers to self-service account management functions to reduce the need to call Sky. Initial discovery piece followed by incremental changes to refine the experience and improve the language, layout and visuals used within the journeys.

For 'Make a Payment' we found the functional aspect of the experience was largely unproblematic; customers were able to successfully fill out a form with payment details and submit it. The frequent calls about this topic were due to poor feedback mechanisms which meant customers expected one behaviour (e.g. making a payment would settle their bill) but found a different behaviour happening in reality (they'd still be charged and the payment would be added as credit to their account). By understanding the real problem I was able to improve the communication and messaging presented to the customer, in order to align their expectation with the system behaviour. Longer term, we are looking at updating the system behaviour to better reflect customers' intuitive expectations, which will help each transaction become more seamless.

Sky - Profile and Settings

More information coming soon.