Project Summary

There was a goal in making services and transactions available 24 hours a day, in a manner that customers would feel comfortable using, providing the same experience as a line agent, and utilizing visuals to further confirm that the expectation being delivered was accurate. This was being done to meet the customers where, when,and how they wanted to be met. We formed a team of internal and external partners to develop a human-like chat conversation that was intuitive enough to give dynamic responses based on the customer’s account. But generic responses could be provided as well if prospect customers without an account engaged in conversation.

Role

Subject Matter Expert

Lead UAT & Quality Project Manager

Lead UAT Product Manager

UX Design

Strategy

1. Discover
   
   1. Reduce the number of “live agent” interaction taken place within chat
   2. Drive some customers to the chat experience for future account needs
   3. Completely contain calls of specific intents
   4. Utilizing Native Language Intent for a better customer experience
   5. Develop a bot capable to understand and provide voice and text responses
   6. Experience optimal experience across all platforms (Mobile and Desktop)
   7. Developing a branded voice
2. Plan
   
   1. Utilize the Agile Methodology to drive the success of the project
   2. Identify all Subject Matter Experts for the variables of this project
   3. Review budget and resources and align them to the desired cadence
   4. Find the minimum viable product to assess early, often, and iteratively
   5. Schedule Retrospectives after each release to enhance the development and working teams relationships
3. Execute
   
   1. Delivered the project ahead of schedule
   2. Became a Subject Matter Expert(SME) for this new product
   3. Created a blueprint for design and testing of this product on other projects
   4. Significantly increased the number of self-serve users via the app
   5. Reduced the number of calls to Customer Service for specific intents
   6. Implemented System of Intent(SOI) and Predictive flows
   7. Established a “Continuous Improvement Team” for Chatbot
   8. Established Chatbot as another vertical to do business with customers

Solution & Results

For nearly a year the team worked to design basic functionalities to exist in the Chatbot conversations. On mobile devices we added an enhanced conversation allowing users to speak to the Chatbot and to receive on screen and verbal responses. This aligned with our efforts off making an accessible option to communicate with our impaired customers. Furthermore, we built an experience that is similar on desktop and mobile devices. Allowing customers to make the follow account changes:

• Plan Change
• Feature Change
• Check Your Bill
• Pay Your Bill
• Review and update International Travel Options Dynamic to the Device Type and destination

All of this was done with heightened security, account specific details being accessible to validated users, while providing generic info to users that were validated customers. No customer or opportunity was excluded. And for the instances that were considered high priority and needed a “live agent” the chat could be escalated.

Improvements that  the Following:

• System of Intent(SOI)/Predictive – system driven decisioning that makes predictions on why a customer is contacting the company
  • Example: Customer has a bill that is $100 higher than their last bill. When they enter the chat as a validated customer this is the first account related concern they are greeted with.
    • “Hello……… are you contacting us regarding the $100 increase on your recent bill?           
• Native Language Understanding(NLU) – utilizing automated intelligence to best determine what the customer is saying via text or voice
• Design – having a simple, abbreviated, easy to understand view for customer with the option to expand for further details

Enhanced Experience