Designing the easy chat experience for MSME‍

In July 2020, Open wants to build something to connect with customers. I began my journey at Open as an Experience Designer and was tasked with leading the design for the Open chat in the Customer Experience and Tools team.

Problem

As Open embarks on the epic journey of providing financial freedom to millions MSME and Enterprise User in the India, it faces a significant obstacle: a lack of consumer trust due to poor support experiences. This is a widespread problem with many companies struggling to address the issue.

Currently, all consumer support on Open is handled through email, which often leads to frustrating experiences for our customers. Resolutions are often delayed, causing further frustration.

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Only 28% of issues raised by consumers are resolved through email.

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Objective

The primary users of the chat solution will be retail customers in the India for the first version. This segment has encountered issues on the retail app that they cannot resolve through the available support content, and therefore need to reach out to support.

Launch Self Help experience to 100% of high-priority customers/markets(India) in Q2

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Success Metrics

Our success criteria will be to launch a messaging product that improves consumer experience and key success metrics at par or better than the current chat support on mobile. The different key metrics for a successful launch are as follows:

5 Commandments of the Chat System

• Discovered easily
• Allow users to chat with agents easily
• Remove the anxiety of the user
• Provide good navigation to the users
• Minimize the inputs required from the users

Design Process

. Audit

The main goal of a design audit is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the design and think about the areas for improvement. It helps businesses to stay up-to-date with current trends and maintain a competitive edge in their industry.

. User Journey

By designing a user journey, businesses can create a more intuitive and user-friendly experience that helps to retain customers and increase conversions. With user flows we can also understand how and where we are facing roadblocks.

. Wireframing

Wireframing is an important part of the design process as it allows designers to create a visual representation of a product or website before moving on to more detailed design work. Unable to attach them as I lost access to my notes 🫠

. Designs

Entry & Re-entry for chat support

As a customer, I should be able to easily access chat support from the support home page to talk to an agent or bot to resolve my current issues. Additionally, I should be able to go back and forth from the chat conversation to perform other tasks if needed. To ensure that I don’t forget to return to the chat, I should receive reminders as necessary.

Intelligence

As the first responder, the Open Assistant needs to be intelligent and empathetic, and able to understand user queries beyond just providing generic replies. It should be able to figure out why the user has reached out for support rather than forcing them to click through canned responses to get answers to their queries.

Our usability test showed that 78% of users prefer canned responses for quick answers, but the chatbot must also be able to understand complex queries submitted as free text. Open Assistant was unable to capture some user inputs, so we decided not to have an input field up front. Instead, we offer the option to enable the input field in a canned response, allowing users to converse with both canned responses and free text as desired.

Not just textual inputs

To improve the chat experience with Open Chatbot (OCB), we need to use UI elements to collect information. The current conversation flow is limited and not scalable. By adding pick lists, we can increase successful resolution and positive rates. This will make the support more user-friendly and reduce cognitive load, avoiding overwhelming dialog prompts.

Branding

Users are more likely to trust a brand when their queries are addressed directly by the brand. However, some brands create an identity for their virtual assistants which may confuse users and raise questions about the assistant’s capabilities or whether they are communicating with a third-party application.

To ensure user confidence, it is important for users to be able to identify a connection with the chatbot. This allows them to invest more time in interacting with the chatbot to solve their problems. Reinforce the value of the chatbot as a super-intelligent virtual assistant who can solve the user’s problems. To build this, I had the honor of working with some talented members of the motion, brand, legal, and illustration teams.

Impact

Checking impact metrics after launching a product is an important step to evaluate the success of the product and identify areas for improvement. Here are some key impact metrics after the launch on Open chat on the mobile and web platform in India.

My Learnings

• It’s always important to review the feasibility of a project with the engineering team during the design process.
• Sometimes, you may need to step outside of the design system. When this happens, it’s important to keep the DS team updated so that the same can be implemented in the DS.
• If you find yourself in a situation where you and your product manager are unable to get on the same page, consider using data from usability testing. It can provide valuable insights and help align your perspectives.
• Presenting designs for a higher-impact launch can help you overcome any obstacles you may be facing. In my case, I received support from our VP of Product and Head of design to create a brand around Open Assistant. This gave me the opportunity to collaborate with various departments including legal, CX, marketing, and branding.

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