Reducing support costs and improving customer experience

An energy client wanted to ensure their website redesign would reduce support costs and improve the service experience for 3+ million customers

Our client came to AnswerLab looking for a research partner who could guide them through a major site redesign, leading a multi-phase process including prototype testing, accessibility evaluation, usability, and ongoing quantitative measurement to track customer satisfaction over time.

Their research questions included: 

• What are the primary goals of our customers when navigating to our site?
• What are the pain points? And where are the opportunities to solve for them?
• Do our new designs better meet user needs on both mobile and desktop?
• Is our site accessible to those with visual impairments? Is our content compatible with assistive technologies?
• As we make changes and launch new iterations, do engagement and satisfaction go up for our site visitors?
• What should be our top priorities for optimization over time?

We answered:

AnswerLab built a comprehensive research program to help our client prepare for and launch their new site, as well as keeping a pulse check on customer needs post-launch for potential continued improvements. 

Pre-Research Synthesis and Accessibility Heuristic

To start, our team looked back at past research initiatives and projects we had conducted with their teams to ensure previous learnings were incorporated and leveraged in the early phases of the project. Conducting pre-research synthesis helped ensure we did not duplicate work or waste precious research time and budget, a critical first step in a project of this magnitude. We helped their team:

• Align on what we’d already learned over the past few years
• Understand constraints and potential opportunities
• Determine the research framework for the rest of the program  

Next, we conducted an accessibility heuristic to evaluate key components of their current experience using the two most commonly used screen readers. The client’s design team leveraged these insights to make sure the new designs adhered to accessibility best practices and did not exclude visually impaired customers.

Research with Users

Once these two early phases were complete, we dove into research with their customers. Over the course of several months, we conducted 8 rounds of research with users, evaluating design mockups and prototypes of their new designs.

Utilizing a range of methodologies from in-depth interviews to tree testing, both remotely and in-person, our team tested a range of designs including:

• pre-login tasks
• onboarding flows
• payment processes and billing pages
• desktop and mobile dashboards
• forgot password flows
• and more…

Outcome:

Through several rounds of consecutive usability testing, building upon each round, we gauged user reactions to the new designs, identified critical user needs to be met, and assessed navigability and usability across prototypes.

Post-launch Quantitative Testing

Since the launch of their newly designed site 3 years ago, we’ve been conducting quarterly quantitative research as a continued way to support this client’s goals. Research objectives for this ongoing testing include:

• Assessing site visitors’ satisfaction with the site
• Identifying pain points and successes over time to prioritize optimizations
• Understanding behaviors, wants, and needs across desktop and mobile

We conduct this testing through continuous intercepts on the client’s desktop site and provide monthly and quarterly reports to the client team with scores on usability, functionality, brand impressions, and more. By conducting ongoing testing, we’re able to show our client trends in satisfaction scores, UX metrics, and task performance over time, as well as offering areas for future investment and prioritization.

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Need UX research help on your product roadmap? Learn more about long-term engagements with AnswerLab.