My Vodafone App Ireland
March 2019 - June 2020
Goal:
Design and deliver an entirely new My Vodafone App for the Irish market. Ensure the new app met and exceeded the same KPI set as the previous app.
Outcome:
App & Play store rating rose from 2.7 to 4.5 stars.
Customer NPS rose sharply.
Journey conversion & other business KPIs improved significantly
The challenge
What do people need from a telecommunications app?
Having just completed a digital transformation, Vodafone Ireland was ready to redefine their digital customer care experience. They decided to rebuild their existing web-view app and create a fully native experience. From February 2019 I started working with stakeholders across the business as well as conducting research to understand user needs. In June 2020 our team delivered an app that delighted users and delivered more value to the business. It went from the lowest rated Vodafone apps in the world to the highest rated Vodafone app.
Below you can find some of the challenges I faced, and how I approached them.
Building empathy & sharing it
To design the new experience, we needed to start by understanding how users worked with the existing app. We had several customer feedback channels that we monitored and assessed. However, it was important to be able to conduct more specific research and rapidly test designs when needed. Initially working with an in-house UX researcher, regular research and tests were conducted throughout the process. Additionally, I conducted guerrilla tests in Vodafone retail stores as needed.
After some time, I inherited the responsibility for budgeting and planning research. This happened during the pandemic, so I had to quickly respond by setting up remote research methods.
Breaking siloes
Many of the existing app issues could only be solved by working with other teams and departments. These teams were spread throughout the organisation and in many cases were firmly siloed. Things that fell under these categories included:
Poor performance & bugs
Overly complicated journeys
Complex legal jargon & content
Building empathy was one of the best ways to align teams. One method I used frequently was mapping journeys and flows on whiteboards with annotations and marking things like load times or how likely a user is to encounter a bug. Doing this helped other teams to understand how these problems caused pain for our customers.
Collaborating on one of Europe’s largest design systems.
Vodafone is a global entity, with each market operating under the umbrella of Vodafone Group. The new app guidelines were a group project that I would have to redesign to account for local users & business needs.
I spent six weeks working at Vodafone’s head office in London as part of a small cross-market team. This team defined the design system for Vodafone markets around the world.