Reducing friction in the ordering process

How might we make it easier for customers to upgrade their broadband service?

The goal of this project was to help Verizon users quickly get to checkout. During this project, I worked with a senior manager overseeing the project and a developer.

Existing pain points

A survey was sent to existing customers regarding their experience with the ordering process.

More than 55% of the respondents called in when they saw a hike in their bill, yet renewed their contract with a rep.

It appeared our customers were still willing to renew, but wanted to make sure that they were getting the best package by calling in.

Understanding all of the variables at play

Upgrading broadband service can be an overwhelming experience. At any given point of time, a number of services are presented to the user. As a result, I began outlining all of the different use cases.

Brainstorming

From there, I went through rounds of white boarding sessions with our Product Manager. The goal was to identify the optimal flow we wanted to present to the user based on the variables we'd identified.

This then turned into a revised user flow of how a customer would renew their services.

Experimenting with different designs

While working on the renewal flow, I was able to play with a lot of fun and different ideas that came out of brainstorming meetings.

One idea was how might we make it easier to renew a plan with one click?

Another idea was how could we promote accessories within a what's new section?

Lastly, these wires became the start of what our existing ordering process could look like to our users. Since price is top and center of our customer's mind, I played with how we could be explicit in this detail.

Usability feedback

Since price was a really big concern for our users, we went through several rounds of testing on our comparison plan. The purpose of the study was to understand if we were providing enough information to the customer regarding pricing.

Finding #1

All participants were able to get through the flow, but most felt there was insufficient information to make a decision to renew their contract.

Finding #2

With our second iteration, we placed the plans side by side. However, participants still didn't feel confident making a decision with this new design.

Finding #3

This was a major change. All participants rated that they would feel comfortable deciding on plans themselves, without assistance!

What we shipped

We launched two different versions of the design to our customers to understand how they would respond to the pricing.

Next steps

The plan is to get a more concrete understanding of how our customers respond to the new internet renewal flow. From there, this templated design will expand to other services such as TV and phone service.