Defining scope of the project
I was asked to redesign the entire Value Added Service module. As the scope was huge we ( I, Product Manage and Dev Team ) decided to breakdown the project in 3 parts and defined a timeline as per the requirements. Here, I will be explaining Messaging Centre Module in detail.
PROJECT BREAKDOWN
TAKE AWAY
What I learned from the process?
Over time, I learned how to influence teams and articulate user and business impact more clearly.
Focus on the core user job
Throughout the project, I had a feeling that we are lacking in research. The thing which kept me going was focusing on core user jobs. I merged similar functionalities and tried to provide the best outcomes for users.
Leverage the existing design components
In organisations, design components are used repeatedly to reduce multiple team efforts. I learned to take the advantage of the existing system and modified it according to current needs.
Documentation is must
I kept documenting all the meetings and updated everyone with help of documentation. In the end, everyone was on the same page. It helped me in reducing conflicts.
Ask Why ?
Always ask why ?? . In this project I kept asking questions to people from different domains of the business. It helped me in a deeper understanding of the product.
DEFINING PROBLEM
Breakdown of the Problem
Messaging Centre flow has major usability issues. Functionality is complex to understand and users are not able to understand the exact flow. This leads to almost no conversion rate.
Conversion
Customers are subscribing to the functionality only if pushed via offline channels, they are not subscribing organically.
Discoverability
Only one ingress point on our platform ( in side navigation ) to discover these services. The user traffic is very less (less than 50 visits per day)
Even after landing at flow users can't figure out where to start.
Complex Functions
As the functionality is complex from a technology & regulatory point of view the user journey is not simple to use.
Conveying the proposition
Messaging centre is a very unique functionality but complex, which is very much needed for automotive & fleet management customers.
However, when we spoke to a few customers they didn't understand the crux of the functionality and asked for a user guide or a demo instead.
Enhancing Information Architecture
After analysing the original information architecture, I recognised the flow (Job Status) which can be kept separate from the original flow to reduce the complexity. Made the entire flow more intuitive and progressive.
PROCESS
Airtel IoT Hub
Messaging Centre
B2B Domain
I worked on project as lead designer. I collaborated with 3 Front End Developers, 1 Back End Developer and
1 Product Manager.
January 2022 - 1 month Duration
In 2020 IoT team launched two value added services Messaging Centre and Location Centre with the target revenue of 5 lac rupees per month where as the current revenue is 30k rupees per month
IN THE BEGINNING
What is IoT CMP ?
IoT CMP is a Connectivity Management Platform utilised to manage SIM cards (Connections) equipped to the devices which require IoT support. With the help of the platform, users can switch plans, request new sim cards, deactivate sim cards and white-list various services.
Earlier all these activities were done by the Airtel Representatives. The clients used to raise tickets an Airtel Representative would personally connect with the client to resolve all the system related queries.Now we are trying to tackle this problem by redesigning the portal to make it more usable for the clients.
Application : Manufacturing, Automotive, Logistics, Utilities
INTRODUCTION
What is Messaging Centre ?
Messaging Centre entitles the user to communicate with IoT enabled devices deployed in the field. Users can identify if a number is switched off or out of the network area. Later, by sending SMS to devices users can also do the first-level of troubleshooting at their end ( remotely ).
FEATURE OVERVIEW
Messaging Centre didn't work the way people worked
Even though team launched Messaging Centre as a new feature in the IoT hub, there were clear limitations to the product.
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Messaging Centre was created by developers as an MVP.
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Team followed dated UI paradigms from an old tech stack, with critical usability issues.
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IA was not in place, users keep calling Airtel's Representatives to get a Knowledge Transfer Session (KT) about the feature.
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The frustration level of users was increasing rapidly, but they have to use this feature to conduct their daily professional tasks.
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Most of the users were not even aware of the new feature launch even though they do require this.
USER ISSUES
The current Messaging Experience is complicated to use. There’s no centralized place for users to create templates and send messages to IoT enabled devices.
THE PROBLEM
Overview of the old experience
The existing feature is consist of all the functionality required for the users, but everything is in jumbled order. User can never figure out the zest of the service without any knowledge Transfer session. For Example, the first step user has to perform to avail of Messaging Centre Service is to Configure a Template. Here, Information Architecture is not in place, user can never figure out starting point.
AUDIT
IMPACT
5.6 lac Rupees in 3 months of launch. How ?
Our target revenue was 5 lac initially when we launched the service in early 2020. Now we achieved that within 2 months. Revamp played an obvious role here. But how?
Showing new designs in sales pitch
Experimented with Sales executive with permission of PM and Design Manager.
Sales executives added the VAS module prototype to their sales pitch.
Acquiring new customers
Tesla and MG hector became our new big customers.
Small startups have started opting for the service organically.
Improving other user journeys
Meanwhile, the entire IoT hub design revamp was going on which made the system more user friendly.
OLD INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
NEW INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Final Design Highlights
I collaborated with a Product Manager, Other Designers, Development Team members and Airtel's Relationship Managers (users) in a 2-week sprint to design an ideal user experience for the Messaging Centre. During two week duration, we had come up with multiple ideations and did pro and con evaluations for each idea. As the existing system was created on an old tech stack, constant help was taken from the dev team, to understand the backend limitations.
PROCESS
Problem : Discoverability
Even after landing at Messaging Centre flow users can't figure out where to start.
Solution
I merged 4 main functionalities into one card.
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Manual SMS (earlier SMS Box) + Batch SMS (earlier it was a separate tab)
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Configure + Compose
The flow became more clear and now users have a starting point.
For new users "Create New Template" will be open by default
Problem : Content Refinement
In the old design, a table was shown to users to track "sent messages data". It was not useful because the flow was broken. Messaging sending task was happening on one tab and data tracking was done on another page.
Solution
Instead of showing a table view, I highlighted the status of the last 3 messages sent by the user.
It will give them real time updates regarding message status.
Retry functionality was introduced in case message sending failed.
Ideate, Validate and Recreate
Quickly I did multiple iterations. And constant discussion happened between the Product Manager, Development team and Design team. As per Airtel ideology, we tried to reuse existing components created for different Product lines of Airtel.
IDEATIONS
CUSTOMER BASE
Focusing on End Users
Currently, IoT CMP hub has 10,000 customers. Is used by different personas across varying roles in automotive, manufacturing, logistics, and the government. In addition to our direct customers, even our end-users fall under our user pool. They are divided among 3 categories.
Government Sector
Electricity board, Haryana police.
5-6 % Customer Base
Staff provided by Airtel (Relationship Manager or technical team handles the customer needs)
Emerging Sector
Startups - Wheelseye, Kent
70 % Customer Base
Finance Executive, Technical Executive recruited by company
Enterprise Sector
MG hector , Mahindra , Maruti
25 % Customer Base
Staff provided by Airtel or Company Technical and Financial Executives
To enhance the user flow and to build a unified framework so that effort is minimized in developing & designing another set of value added services like location service and data pooling.
DESIGN GOAL
Dashboard Approach
There are multiple ingress points in the user journey. Either they can send a message or they can check the status of sent messages. That's why a dashboard approach is chosen.
Merging Content
Tried to merge multiple functionalities in the "Compose" section. Showed previous conversations upfront but the flow was not accurate. Users have to perform multiple actions at the same time.
Simplifying Flow
Divided Compose, Batch SMS and Conversations. Users can compose SMS and save the same SMS as a template. In this scenario, a data table was not much required.
Removing Table
The data table was removed, but we were missing the SMS status which the user checks after sending an SMS.
Decided to discard this design as well.
To enhance the user flow and to build a unified framework so that effort is minimized in developing & designing another set of value added services like location service and data pooling.
VISION
Adding New Functionality
There was a question which was bothering me since starting "What will happen if Message Sending is failed ?", to which our backend team responded and told by default two more attempts are performed by the system to resend SMS. I felt there is a need to tell users about this and we should add more attempts so that meanwhile users should not get anxious.
PROCESS
WHATS NEXT
So much more to do
Due to time constraints, multiple design suggestions were overlooked. Detailed documentation and creating MOM after each meeting helped me keep track of these changes. Later, we agreed to work on these changes once the initial phase is launched. Another part in the journey I want to look up in future is checking the physical device for connectivity.
Improving nomenclature
Currently, we were not able to work on nomenclature because we have to make changes in multiple payment related documentation. Parked this for the future.
Tracking , Testing and Refining
It's a long pending task where we put tracks on user flows. Agreed on creating a framework for A/B testing and refining flows after gathering insights
Adding pre-defined templates and working on backend changes
Users have to refer to a pdf document which consists of several codes for creating templates. Agreed to simplify this journey and make backend changes.
CUSTOMER BASE
Talking to the users
1 Airtel employee (Working as Relationship Manager for Enterprise Customers)
2 Customer
Relationship Manager
Amar Chaurasia
Handles 23-24 IOT customers account (High revenue generation)
Circle: Mumbai
Create and Manage baskets for the users. Provide help to users on regular basis. Provide IoT functionality demos to company employees.
Not aware of the billing process.
Learned the Messaging process by heart after hit and trial options. Still faces issues in writing messages commands.
Lumax
Ankit: Program Manager
Sarthak: Operations Team
4000cr business revenue
Serving OEMs in India and global businesses Products: Automative lighting, gears shifters, metallic structures, two-wheelers.
Uses IoT on a daily basis.
Still waiting for a KT session from Airtel for this feature launch. Service is much required for their team but somehow managing
Genus Pvt ltd.
Sri Sudha Madhavi: Customer Support Team
Keep close tab on SIM status.
Uses Messaging service once or twice in a week.
Keeps forgetting the process and require assistance from Airtel Team frequently.
