Payment Confirmation
IVR/Cross-channel, Data Analysis, Journey Mapping, Asset Mapping
As our client began to take small steps to begin the shift to cross-channel strategy, we found areas where we could help guide them to making channel transitions easier and more optimized for their users.
Data Insights
Upon doing analysis on "missed intent" call log data, I found many instances of callers asking for a confirmation number or simply saying "repeat".
After mining these utterances from the data, I examined all the conversation metadata for these phrases to determine if callers were saying these things at a specific point in the application.
It turned out that a great majority of these phrases were being spoken at the dialog state called "Anything_Else", which is the menu that callers arrive at after completing a task in the IVR that prompts them to state whether they'd like to do anything else in the system. (e.g. "Is there anything else I can help you with?")
Current Payment Confirmation Flow
I took a look at the current design of the user flow where callers are given their confirmation number after completing a successful payment and noticed some problems.
This interaction is one place along the application flow where our client started inserting SMS messages as they took their first steps towards offering a cross-channel experience.
Journey Map
I thought it would be valuable to map out the current user journey surrounding the payment confirmation number.
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Omnichannel Principles
Though adding an SMS message containing the caller's confirmation number was a good first try at optimizing this interaction, it still could use some work.
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I took a Nielsen Norman Omnichannel Journeys & Customer Experiences course in March of 2023 and I learned quite a lot about principles of design for Omnichannel experiences.
In this course, five main components of good omnichannel experience design were emphasized:
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Consistent
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Optimized
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Seamless
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Orchestrated
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Collaborative
I think this interaction could greatly be improved by following this design principle:
Ensure that each interaction is tailored to suit the target channel's unique capabilities while taking into account its limitations.
Why is reading a 15-character code to the user not optimal for voice/IVR channel?
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it's really difficult to process & recall 15 letters/numbers via audio
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letters/numbers are notoriously difficult to distinguish by ear (e.g. "f" as in "foxtrot")​
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users are calling from their cell phone
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they may be distracted, or perhaps driving
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it's likely the caller doesn't have a pen & paper​
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caller may be holding phone up to their ear, phone may be on silent/vibrate off
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caller may not realize they received the SMS message​
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Redesigned Flow
I've redesigned the payment confirmation flow to try and improve the issues described above, and have gone a step further to flesh out how the interaction might translate to chat as well.
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