Solving user frustrations through intelligent conversations
Hive is the UK's number one smart home provider with over 1.8 million customers. Using the Hive app, customers can control a range of internet-connected devices such as a thermostat, lights, plugs, motion sensors, window and door sensors and cameras.
Heating offline is Hive’s number one technical contact driver in the call centre. Agents replicate the same steps that are surfaced in the app in order to resolve the issue. This results in increased costs to serve and unnecessary customer frustration e.g. waiting in the call queue.
We aim to redefine the troubleshooting experience to empower customers, fostering confidence and knowledge to resolve their heating issues. This will reduce call centre contact and decrease cost to serve.
I collaborated with multiple stakeholders to lead the delivery of a cost-effective troubleshooting experience aimed at reducing the cost to serve.
Two key research phases were conducted. The first phase aimed to understand the steps customers need to take to restore their heating online. The second phase aimed to define the best design experience to help customers solve their heating problems.
he current solution served a functional purpose, engaging customers to try key steps to restore their heating online. However, our customers ignored the instructions and mostly contacted Hive Support or online agents, repeating the app's steps.
Collaborating with product owners, business analysts, and the Hive call centre, we created user flows to restore heating and identified opportunities to mitigate user frustrations through tone of voice and expectation management.
We researched a conversational experience that simplifies the process of restoring a customer's heating by understanding their tasks and frustrations. Our approach delivers personalised content through a dialogue, reducing cognitive load and creating a seamless and empathetic experience.
Based on our research, we established a series of questions that helped us to design a better troubleshooting experience:
How might we be more emphatic to our customers?
How might we educate and give confidence to our customers?
How might we add personalisation to the journey?
I created a user flow template to guide the development team in building the conversational experience. Each screen has an objective and key result to add value to the journey. The journey is divided into three sections:
To guide users down the correct troubleshooting path, the first step of the journey presents one clear message and call-to-action on a minimalistic screen. Users are then prompted to be at home for troubleshooting, and a loading graphic indicates when the next message will appear to manage their expectations.
This section of the user flow showcases the core components of the experience. We utilise imagery, video, tooltips, and dynamic content cards to make the process educational, visual, and user-friendly, helping customers complete specific tasks.
Our aim was to provide customers with reassurance that their actions were captured, whether they were successful in restoring their heating or required assistance from an online support agent. If successful, we would provide a transcript for future reference. If unsuccessful, we would hand over all chat answers to an online support agent to avoid duplicating steps.
The experience's design direction is minimal and aligned with the company's design principles: Thoughtful, Elegant, and Delightful. This approach enables us to focus on the given tasks and reduce cognitive load.
To ease potential frustration, we incorporated calming motion elements that reassure the customer and align with their state of mind.
Our immersive content, such as animated 3D models, imagery, and tooltips, guided customers throughout the journey and fostered greater confidence and transparency.
that provided information about their Hive system. Our goal was to maintain user engagement and prevent any potential distractions from the process.
Upon successfully restoring their heating, customers receive an email transcript to refer back to in case of future similar issues.
Design-wise, we emphasised capturing and transferring all conversation information to the online support agent to reassure users that they won't need to repeat any steps.
To understand customer expectations and identify any friction points, we conducted a usability session with ten Hive heating customers who had contacted the call center before.
We discovered four main key insights:
Don’t give users specific time expectations for how long the troubleshooting process will take. Here we thought it might be useful to set a rough time frame on how long the process will take, but in reality, this could fluctuate quite vastly depending on their knowledge of the product and lifestyle habits.
We learned that we had to be more definitive when asking users to complete a task. For example, when referring to the user’s own devices, state this precisely, e.g. “Look at the receiver on your wall”.
We removed the ‘While you wait’ feature as nearly all our participants found this distracting and not what they wanted to see when solving a problem.
Overall the troubleshooting process felt positive, quick and easy to interact with.
After launching the troubleshooting service, we measured a 30% reduction in calls to the Hive call centre. This equated to a £350k saving in 2019 and an estimated £3.4m saving over the next 4 years.
experience effectively addressed the complexities of the troubleshooting process. However, in retrospect, I would reconsider the feature that asks users if they enjoyed the troubleshooting experience, as it may lead to biased positive reviews based on issue resolution rather than the quality of information provided.
