AGENT OS
First Bill
Internal tool designed for Spectrum agents to assist residential customers’ calls related to their first bill and charges.
UX Designer
Role
1 Week
Timeline
Figma, Axure & Miro
Tools
GV Design Sprint
Methodology
What’s Design Sprint?
Team Structure
The org was comprised of 3 omni teams that were solving various problems in a series of design sprints. All the problems were related to building a new experimental tool for agents called Agent OS, which was intended as a replacement for existing Gateway tool. I was part of omni team 2 that focused on tackling self-installation and repair issues.
FACILITATOR
UX DIRECTOR
4 UX DESIGNERS
2 UI DESIGNERS
2 CONTENT DESIGNERS
4 SOFTWARE ENGINEERS
3 UX RESEARCHERS
3 DECIDERS
Overview
Spectrum billing agents are receiving a great volume of calls from Spectrum residential customers related to first their bill. Research was conducted to uncover the first bill related paint points from both agents’ and customers’ perspective.
Problem Space
There is a break in the experience between sales and customer service for our customers. Charges are unclear or unexpected (one-time charges, installation fees, services they didn’t ask for, etc.). Confusion exists for customers around ‘free trials’ and how they are charged. Agents spend a majority of their time educating customers versus performing any actions.
Hypothesis
We believe that building one, inclusive tool that provides relevant, transparent and accessible information about the first month’s bill to Agents will streamline the workflow so they can address customer questions, provide transparency and improve the consumer experience.
Day 1
GOALS
• Understand the problem and the user’s pain points
• Pick an important area to focus on
• Start at the end by mapping a possible end-to-end user scenario
First Bill Examples
Explore the carousel below.
How Might We?
Below are the questions need to answer as a designer in order to be able to turn customer’s challenges and paint points into opportunities for design.
Day 2
GOALS
• Competitor analysis
• Identifying the critical screen
• Sketch out competing solutions
Lightning Demos
For lightning demos each participant was given 30 mins to do competitor research. As competitor’s internal tools aren’t available on the consumer side, the target was on what it is that other companies in our segment do right that works well. After conducting research, in breakout rooms each participant presented their findings. After some discussion the team chose 3 options that they wanted to bring to the team. Below is what I presented to my group.
Verizon
What really caught my eye here is how Verizon handles displaying high level info vs details using a toggle. I could anticipate we were about to solve a similar problem of displaying high volumes of information. Therefore i already started thinking how we could possible handle the information architecture and display most prominent info vs gritty-nitty details. So far, the most common ways to tackle this is collapsing details using a caret. The solution by Verizon is something I found refreshing and inspiring.
Website Hosting
This screenshot was taken on one of the hosting websites. I found a lot of pros of how data is being presented and compared based on a number of criteria listed on the left-hand side.
What caught my eye instantly is the visuals used in the table to communicate what features are available/unavailable. This solution is very refreshing, as it differs from commonly used checkmarks of a regular body font color.
Pega Customer Service
I found this design very applicable to the topic of our design sprint as it also relates to communications and media. Therefore I found this case particularly interesting. I really like how the data here was broken into sections by the lines of business. What I found confusing were the dashes used instead of numbers. Are they implying no charges were made for lines of business associated with the account?
Crazy 8s
For crazy 8s each participant had time to individually sketch out a a variation of one of their best ideas, and then create a 3-panel solution sketch. We would then work in break out rooms to present our solution sketches and pick a few that we would like to bring back to the entire team for the Art Museum activity. Below is the sketch I presented to the team.
Solution Sketches
After we picked a few solutions for the Art Museum, they were presented to the bigger group. The deciders joined the call and voted for the best solutions:
Day 3
GOALS
• Make decisions
• Turn ideas into a testable hypothesis
• Storyboarding
Storyboarding
The day started with storyboarding. Each participant created their story which was then presented in the breakout room. Below is the storyboard that I put together and shared with the bigger group.
Here are few other fun creative story boards that other teams came up with. My initial instinct was to take a screenshot, and I glad i did so I can now share it here. ✨
Day 4
GOALS
• Creating a realistic prototype
Prototype
SCENARIOS
1. Identify Bill Details
Customer calls because they want to understand the charges.
Customer calls in and says, “I just got my first bill from Spectrum and it’s for over $150. I want to know why it’s so high?”
2. Identify Charges Change
Customer calls because their bill is higher than they were quoted at time of order. Customer calls in and says, “I’m calling you because I just received my first bill from Spectrum and it’s over $200 – it’s way higher than I was told when I purchased this plan. Why am I being charged so much?”
Day 5
GOALS
• Validate assumptions
• Get feedback from real users
Usability Testing Overview
Three rounds of usability testing took place at the end of the Agent OS First Bill design sprint. The design team iterated on the prototype based on findings highlighted at the end of each round of testing. The test plan was updated for each round accordingly (as attached below). The team also used this evolving testing to evidence the importance of direct user feedback (as opposed to SME testing in the first round). Click to zoom in 🔎
usability testing
Test Format
Remote moderated testing took place over 45 minute sessions. Participants were asked to imagine they were responding to a new customer who had called about their First Bill. All Billing Agents who participated were asked to explain how they felt the tool would impact their workflow on a daily basis.
12 participants in total gave feedback
2
Oct
2020
ROUND 1
5 Call Center and UAT SMEs
Remote
WebEx
7
Oct
2020
ROUND 2
4 Tenured Billing Agents
Remote
WebEx
14
Oct
2020
ROUND 3
3 Nesting Billing Agents
Remote
WebEx
Key Trends
From affinity map, the team was able to ascertain key takeaways that correlated to the testing goals. In the case of the final round of testing (October 14th), the following key trends were noted
