Conversion rate optimisation
Role
As a Senior UX Designer at giffgaff, working in an agile development team. I presented and defined business opportunities led by user insight to improve the 'Churn' KPI.
Insight
I uncovered a disconnect between users expectations and on-site behaviour on the activation and purchase journey.
Impact
The resulting experience change led to a 55% reduction in churn. Alongside an immediate 25% increase in intended purchases made.
The business problem
Giffgaff, a disruptor in the UK telecoms industry, is renowned for its flexible and honest mobile data packages. Their recent introduction of 18-month contract plans was well-received, yet faced a high churn rate, with 32% of new members leaving within 24 hours. The Business Insights (BI) team identified the SIM distribution channel as a critical churn hotspot, with 62% of new members churning within a month. An investigation was initiated to address this issue.
The process
The initial discovery phase emphasised two key aspects: understanding the current digital journey flow and empathising with users to grasp their behaviours during purchase and activation. Usability testing via UserZoom and journey analysis through Glassbox provided deeper insights into user actions, thoughts and emotions throughout the purchase journey.
Adopting a service design approach, the investigation encompassed the entire journey, starting from in-store SIM pack purchases, recognising that user expectations are shaped before they even visit the website.
The question
The answer
What behaviour was causing new members to select the wrong plan for them resulting in churn?
There was a disconnect between what plan new members were expecting to select on the activation journey and what we were showing them.
Ideation
The focus was on aligning new members' expectations with the plan selection stage to reduce churn. Alongside the Product Manager a design sprint was organised to brainstorm solutions for the plan selection page, prioritising user needs over features.
Understanding the site's core functionality was crucial for swift implementation, leveraging a well-developed design system for existing elements. I used Figma prototypes for immediate usability testing of proposed ideas - testing and learning at speed.
User journey map
Concetrating on a single purchase journey helped to synthesise quantitative and quatitative data into a single source of truth hilighting all potential business opportunities. These were then categorised into an opportunity cost matrix.
Usability testing
Using the test tool UserZoom I conducted multiple usability tests to discover insight into the user behaviour, common struggles and insightful anecdotes. Results were tagged and synthesised to cross-reference against eachother and future experience changes.
A/B testing
I outined an A/B test which was implemented alongside the Business Insights team through Dynamic Yield. The hypothesis to test was that the order of plans impacts churn as a result of poor signposting on plan information cards causing confusion.
The solution
The focus was on creating a simple yet effective activation experience that aligned users expectations (mental model), reduced friction through less scrolling and removed confusion by presenting their desired information right at the top of the page.
Through adopting a service design approach, the transition from physical SIM pack purchase in-store to online activation was streamlined. I introduced a 'Featured Plans' list to prioritise the purchased plan, utilising a back-end identifier to highlight it in the user interface. This approach aimed to alleviate choice paralysis and confusion, which previously led to high churn rates among users.
Business impact
The realease was tracked and saw instant results to the churn metric as 55% less new members were cancelling their plan.
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The new feature implementation not only saw a reduction in churn but also saw an immediate positive impact in overall sales. The experience update reinforced the requirement across the business to ensure that we were providing the right product to the right customer.
