®2024

Brightway - Universal help

I began this project with a clear principle: systems should serve people, not the other way around. In financial services, trust is the foundation of every experience. Using that as a north star, I designed a self-service–first solution that meets users’ needs today while intentionally setting the groundwork for future automation through data.

Client

Brightway

DELIVERABLES

Creative direction, User-journeys maps, High fidelity prototype

Year

2021

Role

Lead Product Designer

The design brief

Facing a surge in customer calls at the end of 2021, particularly related to login issues, payments, and locked cards, which resulted in monthly operational costs of ~$250000, I was tasked with developing a call avoidance digital journeys. The objective was to reduce call volumes by creating universal self help flows.

Understanding the problem space

I kicked off with a detailed UX audit, secondary research, and categorization of user feedback from app store reviews and social media complaints. Data analysis, in collaboration with our engineering team, identified login issues as the primary call driver.

The current approach of having generic "Want help" buttons in the UI was definitely not effective and needed to be addressed first. The initial intent to get help by being directed immediately to call without trying any solution first was what was hurting the bottom line of the business. With this realization, I need to craft a comprehensive help flows for each error scenario that might arise in the application.

Solutioning…

To overcome the current design shortcomings, my design process was structured around a two-fold strategy: Reactive and Proactive help.

For the reactive approach, I replaced generic buttons with specific actions and introduced self-guided chat flows.

The proactive approach aimed to anticipate user needs, directing them to chat self-service flows before resorting to the call center. Moreover, there are many visual elements that can be used to guide users to complete an action. By taking the BrightWay straightforward design principle as my guideline, I have elevated the brand emoticon of BrightWay making it an integral part of the resolution process. The emotional aspect of the yellow happy emoji makes the whole process a tiny bit better than a generic help icon personalizing the brand and creating a positive emotional connection.

Proactive self service

I simplified the search for answers by introducing a self-service help hub in a dedicated section. This hub serves as a central spot for users to perform actions like changing their address. It also provides access to informative articles, customer support contact, and an interactive chat agent tailored for self-service flows related to payments, account locks, and disputes.

I have added final touches to the hub by making it accessible without the need for login. My team and I worked on a FAQ webpage that could be accessed from anywhere. With these details in place the design provided clarity and empowerment to BrightWay customers that they are in control at all times.