Help Mobile
Problem: Weight Watchers’ mobile help section did not provide self-service help, which led to members unnecessarily contacting agents, causing a high number of ghost (aka abandoned) chats.
Users: Weight Watchers members and call center agents.
Tools & Methods: Sketch, Adobe CS; user research, personas, customer journey mapping, wireframing, UI, prototyping, iterating.
Hypothesis: We believed that by redesigning the help section and providing self-service options, we could improve customer satisfaction and save a significant amount of money annually. We measured our success by decreased ghost chat volume and employed agents.
Timeline: This project occurred over a few months in 2017.
Background
Originally, the help section in our app provided no path for members to resolve issues on their own. The entirety of the help section displayed four buttons with identical copy that appeared to lead to separate paths but all led to the same screen.
Four buttons, one screen.
User Needs
Before diving into sketching and ideating, we needed to ensure members' problems were guiding us.
"Is there a difference between all of these chats? They look pretty similar. Or maybe I'm doing something wrong?"
– Gabriella
"I don't always feel like talking to an agent. Why can't I just look up something on my own? I wind up using Google instead."
– Maria
"Should I be going here for emotional support or for random FAQs? Or maybe FAQs are located somewhere else?"
– Luisa
The Self-Service Issue
Given the lack of self-service options, a large number of agents needed to be on call at all hours to respond to members' chats. Removing identical CTAs and offering self-service options was the first step in lowering ghost, or abandoned, chat rates.
A typical day for an agent before the redesign.
Sketching & Ideating
Initially, we considered replacing live agents with a bot, similar to the one on Facebook Messenger. However, to get to the desired intelligence level, we first needed to gather information on member issues to ensure proper, human-sounding responses.
A few sketches from the possible bot chat flow.
Flow Update
Rather than provide an entire bot flow, a human-sounding bot would appear as the first message, delaying a live agent assignment. As soon as the member responded, ensuring it wasn't a ghost chat, a live agent would continue the conversation. A self-service help section was also added to reduce agent dependency.
Initial User Journey
Newest Wireframes
Based on data reporting, we quickly saw chat was still too prominent, thus letting self-service go unnoticed. In an upcoming update, help is replaced by a noticeable search bar, with categories and articles listed underneath – but no chat entry. Once in an article, related content and a chat are offered.
Updated User Journey
