Sarah Williams | Design Leader

Service transparency

Omni-channel communication to build customer trust.

The objective

Design an omni-channel communication experience to notify customers of network outages in their area.

COMPANY
Verizon

MY ROLE
Project design lead with a team of Designers (x2), Design Manager, Research partner and a Product Manager.

TIMELINE
2019

The problem

Losing customer trust

Customers don’t think about their network until issues arise. When they do, it's burdensome to figure out what’s going on and how to fix it, leading to frustration and potential churn.

Why it matters

Lack of transparency creates a negative customer experience, increasing the likelihood of switching carriers.

Timely and accurate communication will differentiate Verizon from competitors.

Successfully setting customer expectations during disruptions reduces frustration, call-in rates, and the risk of churn.

Desired outcomes

Improve retention

Provide network transparency to build trust and loyalty.

Reduce cost

Decrease the cost of customer support from outages.

Reduce customer effort

Minimize the time and effort customers spend finding relevant outage information.

Discovery

Understanding the current service

Today, Verizon provides little information to customers and internal teams around network outages, and the systems and workflows in place are time consuming and inefficient.

In order to understand the current state, we gathered inputs across the organization to understand existing teams, processes, and systems for outage communication.

Methods:

  • Shadowed network teams
  • Facilitated stakeholder interviews
  • Conducted customer and Verizon representative surveys

Service blueprint
Uncovered complexity, redundancy and inefficiency in the current outage management process.

Image of the service blueprint for current network outages

User journey
Identified how frustrating and cumbersome it is for customers to troubleshoot and identify network issues.

Image of the current Verizon customer journey for identifying network issues.
Definition

Building the framework

We developed a framework for a new, improved messaging system based on identified pain points:

  • Who would receive service messaging
  • What the message(s) would contain
  • Where the messages would live

Messaging timeline
Real-time updates on service restoration progress.

Image of our messaging timeline for sharing progress with customers.

Logic flows
Rules to identify and communicate with impacted customers.

Image of how we identify different types of customers impacted by an outage.
Research

Understanding user expectations

We collaborated with our research partner to gauge customer expectations and build enough evidence to convince PR partners that the service would not hurt Verizon's reputation.

Research approach

  • 49 diary studies
  • 100 remote unmoderated test
  • 1500+ quantitative surveys

Research goals

  • To understand the right time, channel and type of information desired by customers to match expectations.
  • To validate the information provided removes uncertainty and feels trustworthy.
  • To understand whether communication creates a negative or positive brand perception.
Low-fidelity wireframes of text messages and webpage designs for user testing.

Overall, customers appreciated their mobile carrier going out of their way to acknowledge a network problem, and stating they were actively working on it.

We used the insights to build a case with legal and PR teams to green light the project; a huge win!

Key insights

Desire for more communication
Customers preferred to be over informed and want information accessible across digital touchpoints.

Value in alternatives 
Knowing alternative options for internet connection reduces disruption.

Need for progress updates
Customers feel more confident when they know the expected resolution time and see progress being made.

Tone matters
Customers prefer messages that are informative, descriptive, and friendly, but dislike repeated apologies.

Guiding principles

More is more
Push messaging across all channels that customers may have access to.

No dead ends
Always offer customers a next step or ways to follow up.

Be specific
Be as detailed and specific as possible to help customers understand the circumstances of the disruption.

Remain human
Use customer-friendly language, addressing their concerns directly.

Final design

Creating a new standard

My team and I drove discussions with internal business teams and the FCC to create a new standard for network communications.

What we delivered

  • Design for messaging across six customer and rep-facing channels.
  • Design for an internal outage management tool to track progress and trigger communications.
  • Logic for including outage information in Verizon’s System of Engagement platform.
Customer-facing communication

Proactive and reaction communication to inform customers of network issues wherever they are.

Final design for text messages and network status details.
Final design for rep-facing outage communication.
Rep-facing communication

Enables customer support representatives to locate and view outage information to effectively troubleshoot customers' network issues.

Outage management tools

Enables Network Team members to manage outage communication, in real-time, with machine-learning restoration estimates.

Final design for outage management tools for tracking progress towards resolution.
Verizon commercial for network notifications
Impact

Establishing new processes

Reduced support calls

Delivered improved service during network disruptions, reducing outage-related call-in rates.

Improved customer advocacy

Built new partnerships with network, business and legal teams to deliver customer-centric experiences.

Award winning service

Received a Verizon Innovation award for leveraging new technologies that could scale.

More work

Previous project
Paladin

Pro Bono Engagement

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