2/12/04 Slide 1 SBC Laboratories User Needs and User Profiling

2/12/04 Slide 2 SBC Laboratories High Performance Low Performance Target “Expert” Level User Population Target “Novice” Level

2/12/04 Slide 3 SBC Laboratories “Single View” l Any single view of the User is incomplete, whether it is the novice, average, or expert »Each view only captures a limited number of users »The implemented design may actually hurt the performance of the other non- represented users. l Representing all of the Users individually is not cost effective. l A reasonable number of views (3 to 5) has high leverage. Small enough to be definable, but large enough for coverage.

2/12/04 Slide 4 SBC Laboratories Behaviors - Strategies Basic Call + Up Selling = Total Revenue l Rep 1 : + = l Rep 2: + =

2/12/04 Slide 5 SBC Laboratories User Models Modeling Approach: »The first step is to categorize the service representatives’ behaviors into clusters. »The second step is to objectively and quantitatively describe the service representatives’ behaviors and strategies. »The third step is to create a model for each of those clustered behaviors. »Simulate the models to determine impact.

2/12/04 Slide 6 SBC Laboratories Grouped Agents

2/12/04 Slide 7 SBC Laboratories Performance by Group High Low FewMany Offers per Call Monthly Sales “Blue”“Yellow” “Orange”“Purple”

2/12/04 Slide 8 SBC Laboratories Qualitative User Models Blue Group »Very few cross sell attempts »Efficient call takers, shortest call duration »Most likely do only what the customer requests »High Revenue Yellow Group »Moderate number of cross sell attempts »Moderate call duration »High Revenue

2/12/04 Slide 9 SBC Laboratories Comments l Large, diverse user-populations can be categorized into distinctive groups. l Top performers may use different strategies and those behaviors need to be understood. l Models reflect factors that are important in achieving business goals. l Models can be constructed of those behaviors. l Models should be integrated with interface design and operational improvement.

2/12/04 Slide 10 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric Interface Design

2/12/04 Slide 11 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric v Customer-Centric approach takes the customer’s view or perspective in accomplishing tasks. v Frequently, organizations focus on the business, department, or process perspective. Organizations concentrate on the processes, people, and technologies that must interact to address the customer’s request and ultimately accomplish the customer’s task. v The goal is to have the Customer routed to the most appropriate location (agent) where the customer can on their own, or with our assistance, accomplish their desired task with the highest level of satisfaction at the least amount of cost.

2/12/04 Slide 12 SBC Laboratories Business-Centric Interface: Customer has Mapping Burden Customer’s Contacts How many? 1,000,000s How many? 10 “SOC” “BIC” “Want Caller ID” “Don’t understand my bill” “Need a 2nd line” “Reconnect phone” Customer’s Expressions Task Completion “RMC” How many? 100,000s MENU For Service Order Center, press 1. For Billing Inquiry Center, press 2. For Revenue Management Center, press 3. Interface ?

2/12/04 Slide 13 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric Interface: System has Mapping Burden Task Categories Customer’s Contacts “Order Service” “Get Bill Information” “Reconnect Services” How many? 1,000,000s How many? 100 How many? 10 “SOC” “BIC” “Want Caller ID” “Don’t understand my bill” “Need a 2nd line” “Reconnect phone” Customer’s Expressions Task Completion “RMC” How many? 100,000s MENU To order service, such as caller id or a second line, press 1. To get billing information, press 2. To reconnect your services, press 3. Interface

2/12/04 Slide 14 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric Design Customer-Centric approach uses the customer task as the primary influence on interface design. –Menu items would directly match tasks that customers are trying to accomplish. –Menu items would be grouped and ordered by frequency of customer tasks. –Menu items would be worded in the language of the customer.

2/12/04 Slide 15 SBC Laboratories Performance Realities v All interface technologies have limitations. A given interface technology (e.g. IVR systems) can achieve a certain level of customer satisfaction and a certain level of performance (e.g. accomplish their task). All interface technologies will have less than perfect customer satisfaction and performance. v Customer-Centric approach will specify a design that maximizes the performance of a given interface technology. In other words, Customer-Centric approach delivers the best interface possible for a given interface technology.

2/12/04 Slide 16 SBC Laboratories 5 Step Design Approach Understand customer goals Design from user’s perspective Lab tests & field evaluations Reduce misdirects Increase customer satisfaction 1. Customer Task Frequency Table 2. Customer Perceptions for Interface Structure 3. Interface Design 4. Customer Usability Test 5. Refine Design for Implementation Understand customer preferences

2/12/04 Slide 17 SBC Laboratories Step 1: Customer Tasks v Why do customers contact us ? vCustomers want to accomplish a task. vWhat are those tasks ? v Gather data. vCustomer’s opening statement provides an excellent snapshot of their (first, primary) task. vGather sufficient number of tasks to be statistically valid. (e.g. 2,500) vCategorize tasks into Customer-Centric groupings. vTabulate results and construct Frequency Table.

2/12/04 Slide 18 SBC Laboratories Customer Task Frequency Table

2/12/04 Slide 19 SBC Laboratories Task Frequencies

2/12/04 Slide 20 SBC Laboratories Class Discussion: Action-Objects

2/12/04 Slide 21 SBC Laboratories Step 2: Customer Perceptions v Card Sort Method: Customer’s perception of how customer tasks should be grouped into menu items. They are given the most frequent customer tasks and asked to categorize them into logical groups. v Procedure: vSort (numbered) task cards into groups based on the similarity of tasks. vRank groups in order of importance. vThe more tasks are linked, the more they should be in the same menu structure.

2/12/04 Slide 22 SBC Laboratories Customer Frequency of Use v How often do the customers visit the interface? vFrequent daily use. vInfrequent “walk up and use”. v Key behavior - do the customers remember the interface from one use to the next?

2/12/04 Slide 23 SBC Laboratories Customer Perception of Structure

2/12/04 Slide 24 SBC Laboratories Customer Perception of Structure

2/12/04 Slide 25 SBC Laboratories 2. Add Optional Service 3. New Service/Open Account 4. How to Use 5. Disconnect Optional Service 7. Change Optional Service 8. Disconnect Services/Close Account 12. Move Service 22. Reconnect Service 24. Schedule a Move

2/12/04 Slide 26 SBC Laboratories 1. Get Info about Bill 10. Schedule a Payment 13. Information on Account 14. Discuss Bill 15. Get Information on Payment 17. Where to Make a Payment 18. Give Information on Payment 19. Make a Payment

2/12/04 Slide 27 SBC Laboratories

2/12/04 Slide 28 SBC Laboratories

2/12/04 Slide 29 SBC Laboratories Step 3: Design Customer-Centric approach: –Customer Task Frequency Table identifies what topics should be included on the menu. –Card Sort identifies how to group menu items and how customers would structure the interface. –Customer Opening Statements identify how to word or what language to use in the menu items.

2/12/04 Slide 30 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric vs Business-Centric

2/12/04 Slide 31 SBC Laboratories “Action-Object” in Design Rank order of design styles (best to worst): –Action-Specific Object. (e.g. “to order CallNotes”) –Specific Object. (e.g. “for CallNotes”) –Action-General Object. (“to order a service”) –General Object. (e.g. “for all other questions”)

2/12/04 Slide 32 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric Interfaces v Examples of Business-Centric menu items: vFor orders, press 1. vFor repair, press 2. v Examples of Customer-Centric menu items: vTo get information about your account, or our services and prices, press 1. vTo get new service, move, change, or disconnect your service, press 2. vTo report a problem with your service, press 3.

2/12/04 Slide 33 SBC Laboratories Pseudo-Problem

2/12/04 Slide 34 SBC Laboratories Cut-Throughs Announcement User Selection Time in seconds Ann. A 1 Ann. B = Announcement User Selection Time in seconds Ann. A = Announcement User Selection Time in seconds Ann. A (-1) = -4 Ann. B 3 CRT Score

2/12/04 Slide 35 SBC Laboratories Cumulative Relative Time - CRT

2/12/04 Slide 36 SBC Laboratories Step 4: Customer Usability Testing v Testing reduces risk. No matter how well the interface has worked in the past or on other applications, testing is a relatively quick inexpensive approach to reducing the risk. v We set up a controlled experiment to ensure that implementation surprises are minimized. v Approximately 100 customers (actually 96) perform tasks using the interface in order to achieve statistically valid results. v Normally, more than one design (usually four) is tested and evaluated.

2/12/04 Slide 37 SBC Laboratories Experimental Design

2/12/04 Slide 38 SBC Laboratories Customer Satisfaction Comparison

2/12/04 Slide 39 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric Results

2/12/04 Slide 40 SBC Laboratories Step 5: Refine Design for Implementation Performance Matrix –Provides a view of two important performance indicators (i.e. customer satisfaction and correct call routing). –Used to evaluate the performance of specific customer tasks.

2/12/04 Slide 41 SBC Laboratories Business-Centric Performance Matrix

2/12/04 Slide 42 SBC Laboratories Customer-Centric Performance Matrix

2/12/04 Slide 43 SBC Laboratories Post-Implementation Data

2/12/04 Slide 44 SBC Laboratories Comments l Assume reported data is wrong. Or, at minimum, the data is not what it appears. Lesson: always validate and verify data before performing analysis. l Key Step: Compare predicted to observed.