The Project
Amaysim is a well known Telco within Australia who offers BYO mobile plans at an affordable price. With the launch of the National Broadband Network (NBN) Amaysim wanted to diversify their offering and offer NBN plans to their customers.
The UX team including myself had been working hard on the wireframe screens and email communications of the NBN experience and we had all of the separate components finished.
In order to find out what the experience was like end to end I created a research plan to see what customers thought of what we had created. To help me carry out this plan I teamed up with another UX designer to help me carry it through. First question we had was...
Who are our customers?
To know what the experience would be for amysim's nbn customers, we first needed to know who are amaysim's nbn customers? To answer this questions we reached out to our existing mobile customer base who had opted in to be contacted for research purposes to uncover which type/s of people would most likely purchase Amaysim's NBN.
We interviewed 30 people across different ages to find this out. From the interviews, observations and insights we uncovered who these people were and created personas.
Personas
Can't wait
Can't wait is a woman, 36 years old who works as a community manager who rents with her husband. She streams TV shows and music online with up to 7 connected devices. This means she would be best suited to the 25Mbps NBN plan. Can't wait is a persona that represents a group of loyal amaysim customers who really love the amaysim brand. They love what amaysim stands for and how simple the plans are month to month with no lock-in contracts. This group are mobile customers who have had their plan for an average of one and a half years.
How she uses her internet
- Streaming TV shows
- Streaming apple music
- Online shopping and banking
Everyday John
As the name suggests Everyday John is your average bloke, he is a single divorced parent in his 50's with a teenage son. He isn't happy that he has to change his internet connection to the NBN as his current ADSL2 connection is working perfectly fine. He sees this as an inconvenience and something that is going to take up a lot of his time. His perception is that he doesn't need a "Super fast internet" as he uses it for everyday tasks, however hasn't taken into consideration his son's internet connection needs.
How he uses his internet
- Checking email
- General web browsing
- Paying bills
- Son: Streaming music
- Son: Gaming online
Tech Life
Tech life is a man in his mid to late 30's he is very technically savvy and works within the IT industry. He relies on his internet connection for all aspects of his life. He is an early adopter of technology and is interested to see what amaysim has to offer on the NBN front. He uses the internet to simmplify his life by having home automation and the internet of things around his home. As he has many conencted devices and has high expectations of his connection he is best suited for the 100MBPS plan.
How he uses his internet
- Sending large files for work
- PC online gaming
- Security cameras at his home
- Watering the garden with automation
- Turning lights and electrical devices on/off via IOT
Research plan
Now that we know who our potential NBN customers are we know who to recruit for our research plan. For the research plan I opted for a latitudinal study over 2 months. I divided the study into four parts.
- Research and usability testing - Understand how people research NBN plans and the usability of the amaysim webpages and sales funnel
- Phone interview - Obtain feedback at key moments within the NBN experience. Getting feedback on emails and SMS's as well the installation process.
- Modem set-up simulation - Testing the quick start guide.
- Email survey - Looking back at the experience of signing up to amaysim's NBN plan as a whole how would they rate the experience.
Usability testing
We invited 8 participants to come in and show us how they would research NBN plans, we gave them our laptop and let them freely look online. By watching people research NBN plans we noticed a few trends.
Top search terms
- NBN plans
- NBN
- NBN roll out
- NBN set up
- NBN box
Research paths
Participants either went stright to the NBNco website or straight to provider websites after which they would then look at comparison websites. Participants who went straight to the NBNco website went there to see if their address was NBN ready and which providers offered NBN plans.
Usability testing
After seeing what search terms, web paths and important features people look for when researching NBN plans we then tested amaysim's NBN landing pages and sales funnel.
Landing screen findings
Participants liked that there were only three plans to choose from, limited choice made it easier to decide which plan to choose. Key selling points were validated as these were the features they were interested in, based on what we saw in our research. Attention was paid to the policies and new development fee.
SQ findings
Service qualifier was easy to use, people liked the smart search functionality. People had positive feelings towards the activation timeframe. Little attention was paid to the conenction type, the address and the secondary link "What is the installation process?"
Funnel findings
Participants found it very simple and clearly laid out. Existing customers liked that everything was prefilled. Some users spent a lot of time reading the CIS so we needed to increase the funnel session times. Payment was clearly laid out.
We have a problem
During testing the funnel with existing customers we discovered that some had forgotten their login password and that our password reset flow was broken. This was a huge problem for potential NBN customers. This was something that had to be addressed before we went live with the NBN offering.
Phone Interviews
During each key moment of the NBN signing up experience we called our participants to see how everything was tracking. For the phone interviews we were interested in knowing if the SMS's and emails were sent at the right time and if they set the right expectations and were understood. Overall the comms were well recieved people found it easy to follow and set the right expectations.
We did uncover that some participants had received the wrong emails saying that they need to stay home for NBN equipment installation when equipment was being installed outside of their home. We found that two email triggers were set up wrong for the wrong NBN service classes. This was good that we foudn this out before going live.
Modem Set-up simulation
We simulated the modem installation as a separate test, we brought in 5 people to read through the quick start quide and see if they could successfully set up the modem. Our aim was the have the diagrams be so claer that people didn't need to read the words on the guide. We spoke with the manufacturer to change the LAN cable to yellow instead of grey to make it even easier to understand.
Email survey
We asked the 8 participants to rate the overall experience out of 5. 1 being very unsatisfied with the overall experience and 5 being very satisfied with the overall experience.
- 4 out of 8 participants rated it 4/5
- 4 out of 8 participants rated it 5/5
"It's fun and friendly and true to the brand" - Erin T.
"I love it, good value for money, good service, no problems" - Carol C.
Customer journey Maps
After following the 8 participants through the entire NBN signing up process from researching plans, installation appointment through to using their new amaysim NBN service we were able to create customer journey maps to visually show how their experience.
Can't wait Journey Map
Scenario: Can't wait receives an email from amaysim saying that they are now offering NBN plans.
Can't wait clicks on the link and is taken to the NBN landing page, she is very excited. She checks her address and sees that her address is NBN ready so she continues to read what the speeds really mean.
She then goes to the build your plan page, as she is an existing customer she is taken to the about you page and has to sign in. This is where she has a major problem, she can't remember her password and after a few tries is now locked out of her account. She has to wait for an hour or call up customer support. She then calls up amaysim and gets her password reset.
Then she places her order and then sees the confirmation page this is when she is happy again, however this is short lived after she receives her modem in the mail she receives an email saying that she needs to stay home for NBN equipent installation, she received the wrong email and the work is actually being done down the road. This makes her very angry as she had to take a day off to stay home for the equipment install.
After the equipment has been installed she recives a confirmation email and sets up her modem with the quick start guide which she found easy to use. Once connected she is happy with her connection.
Quote: "This is great! The internet is a lot faster and I can stream movies without any buffering."
Key findings
- Reset password flow needed to be improved.
- Email communication triggers needed to be fixed for customers who didn't require to stay home for equipment installation.
Everyday John Journey Map
Scenario: Everyday John receives a flyer in the mail saying that his area is now NBN ready.
John is angry at the start as he doesn't want to spend his time changing his internet connection as it works perfectly fine at the moment. He is confused as he is researching plans and the difference between ADSL and NBN plans. He then decides this is all too complicated and decides to call amaysim to sign up over the phone.
He is then angry as the agent is telling him to go online to sign up to the NBN. He is then passed to the sales team over the phone who first is talking in jargon and he doesn't quite understand what they're saying, however after a short while he agrees to an NBN plan.
Everything after that goes smoothly he gets he confirmation email and stays home for the in home rquipment installation he then reads the activation email which is easy to understand. When he is up and running he is a bit annoyed that the internet seems to be the same as what he had with ADSL2+ as he chose the smallest plan.
Key findings
- Clearly outline the difference between ADSL2+ and the NBN plans.
- State how quick and easy it is to switch to amaysim's NBN.
- Have the IVR direct customers straight to the sales agents over the phone.
- Revise the agent script to remove technical jargon.
Tech life Journey Map
Scenario: Tech life finds out that there is a new player in the NBN space and googles amaysim to find out more
He is reading up on amaysim's NBN plans and decides to give it a go, he is neutral up until the point where i=he checks his address where he is pleasantly surprised that it will be connected so quickly.
He reads up further on the CIS and Fair Go policies where there are some clauses which raise concerns so he starts a conversation on live chat where he has some technical questions, he is getting angry as the agent doesn't seem to have the answers he is looking for. He is then informed he will be called back by technical support to answer his questions.
Signing up and installation all goes smoothly for him which he is very happy about. Once he has recieved his activation email he then goes setting up his BYO modem. He is getting angry as he is finding it very difficult to find the IP address of his modem. It takes him several hours to figure out how to find the IP address and is then up and running with amaysim NBN. He is very happy with the speeds he is getting with his plan and is able to connect multiple devices to his connection.
Key findings
Conclusion
During our research we were able to determine how customers research NBN plans, what key features that they are looking for and see if all communications were setting the right expectations at the right time. By running this pilot we were able to uncover pain points mentioned above throughout the sign-up experience which we were able to fix before going live.
By creating personas it enabled the NBN team to be more human centred with future features and the creation of the journey maps was a great visual representation of the current state to help inform the NBN team's roadmap of how to improve the customer's NBN experience.