A Great Experience from Qwest

I recently switched to Qwest for DSL service and wasn’t sure what to expect as far as customer experience.  I wish it wasn’t such a surprise, but pleasant surprises are better than bad surprises.  I was really impressed with their do-it-yourself installation and setup process.  Here’s a rundown of my experience.

When I opened the box I was greeted by bright, friendly colors, a packet of information, and three clearly labeled compartments.

 
The instructions, though a little large when completely unfolded, were clear and easy to follow.

 
I was especially impressed with the way the instructions described the various items in the box and referenced the color-coded chords. (Black for power, green for phone, and yellow for ethernet.)  Someone clearly put some thought into this.  And, incredibly, a phone number for a help line is listed once on the inside of the box and 4 times in the instructions.  They are obviously focused on delivering a great customer experience, not avoiding phone calls.

Once the the hardware was connected, I was automatically connected to the online configuration application.

First I was presented with a friendly welcome screen with brief instructions (in plain language) on how to navigate through the various steps.

 
On the next screen, they did a good job of heading off potential problems and/or confusion by telling me what to do if my firewall software appears.

 
The page also has some other helpful elements including a progress indicator, “Tell me more…” link (makes optional, more detailed info available without cluttering the page), a live chat icon (instant help), and a help icon.

After completing a few more steps in the process I was asked to indicate which modem I have.

 
Ideally the system would be able to figure this out without asking me but, if they have to ask, providing photos of the modems is much more meaningful and helpful than just listing a bunch of names.  (Especially since they have names like “ActionTec M1000″ and “2Wire 2700HG”.)

Once the setup process was completed I was presented with a final screen listing important account information.  It was nice to have it all in one place rather than have to dig for it later.

 
Qwest has had a reputation for a terrible customer experience but in the last couple of years they’ve really improved.  Their modem setup experience was excellent and I think illustrates some principles that can be applied almost any experience.

• It’s ok to have fun
  Qwest’s packaging and web UI were colorful and somewhat playful in appearance and language.  Any time you can inject fun into an experience, do so.  (Assuming it fits with the offering and branding).
• User conversational language (if appropriate)
  Standard corporate language is boring and sometimes hard to understand.  Don’t use fancy words.  Just say what you’re trying to communicate.
• Coordinate the elements
  Qwest did a good job of making sure the hardware in the box matched what was described in the instructions and that the modem was actually in the list of modems in the web UI.  They even went so far as to specify the color of the power cord, phone cable, and ethernet cable and then referenced those colors in the instructions.
• Tell people where they are in the process
  A basic common courtesy.
• Warn about (or better yet, help avoid) potential problems and stress points
  Qwest knew that customers’ firewall software could potentially try to block the modem setup process.  They warned users that the problem could be coming and what to do if it happened.  If users know a potential problem could be coming and how to deal with it, it’s much less stressful when it actually appears.
• Offer liberal help options
  Qwest made phone numbers, chat button, and help icon clearly visible throughout the installation process.  Don’t try to hide access to a live person just so you can save money.  Avoid help calls/chats through great design and processes rather than by hiding a phone number or chat button.
• Give me pictures
  If you’re going to ask me to identify something, give me a picture if at all possible – especially when dealing with hi-tech products and their cryptic meaningless names.

By creating an easy and enjoyable setup experience Qwest accomplished three things.

1. They delivered a great experience that reflects well on their brand image.
2. They decreased the load on their call centers.
3. They made their service more appealing by lowering the cost.  (I didn’t have to pay an extra $86 to have a Qwest technician come install it.)

Nice job Qwest.  I hope they and the rest of us can keep building on great experiences like this one.

37signals Thinking

I’ve been using 37signals’ Basecamp for a couple of years now and have been sporadically reading their blog and some of their book for even longer.  Over the last couple of months I’ve been reading their blog more regularly and listening to their podcasts and I have to say I find their story, thinking, and approach both refreshing and inspiring.  Some of my favorite ideas and insights (summarized in my own words):

• The default response to new feature ideas should be “no”.  New feature ideas should go through a lot of scrutiny before being implemented.  Keep it simple.
• Ditch the functional/UI specs.  They chew up a lot of time and don’t ad much value.
• If you start a new company: (a) you don’t have to take out a loan or get VC funding, (b) remember that the work patterns you set early will probably continue permanently,  (c) don’t start out giving away your product for free.
• Don’t try to become the next Facebook or Twitter.  The odds are very small that it will happen.  Shooting to become a $1M is much more feasible.   If you charge a monthly subscription rate of $40 and have 2000 customers, your revenue would be about $1M.  That’s pretty reasonable.  If you address a niche really well, 2000 customers should not be a huge problem.
• Avoid chopping up your day with meetings, email, IMs, etc.  You are much more productive with a few large blocks of time than you are with multiple small chunks.
• There are a lot of large, old companies around.  It seems as though most startups have the goal of prepping the company to be bought by a large old company.  All the fresh thinking and ideas inherent in a startup get squashed by the large old company.  What’s going to happen in several years when we no longer have startups growing into large new companies?  Much of the potential innovation will be lost.
• Treat your customers like people.  Shoot straight and speak/write/act like a human.  (Something near and dear to my heart.)

There are more but these are the ones that have stuck with me.

I appreciate 37Signals’ candor and their willingness to share their ideas and lessons learned.   Questioning long-standing assumptions and the status quo is always good.

Recommended reading/viewing/listening:

• Getting Real
  They’ve posted a free online version or you can buy the PDF or hardcopy.
• Podcast
  Especially episodes 2, 3, and 4
• David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals at Startup School 2008
  Video of co-founder, David Heinemeier presenting to students and Startup School 2008.
• Top 20 Blog Posts of 2009
  Their most viewed posts.

Community Integration on Corporate Home Pages

To build on my previous thoughts about integrating community into corporate sites, I did a quick analysis of the home pages for eleven large hi-tech companies.  (Cisco, Dell, SAP, Microsoft, Intel, HP, IBM, Oracle, Sun, VMware, and NetApp.)   On each company’s home page I looked for:

1. Links to community-related pages/sites (forums, blogs, wikis, etc.)
2. Community-generated content (from forums, blogs, etc.)
3. Social tools (such as RSS subscriptions or Share functionality)

I put together a slide deck with screenshots and notes.  (Viewing full-screen recommended.)

Some Observations

• All the home pages I looked at had at least one link to a community-related page or site.
• Community-related links most commonly displayed on home pages included:  (Numbers indicate number of sites displaying that link out of total.)
  • “Community/Communities” (9/11)
  • “Forums/Discussions” (6/11)
  • “Blogs” (6/11)
  • “RSS” icon/link (6/11)
  • “Wikis” (2/11)
• “Community/Communities” links went to either a routing page (listing links to various community-related sites) or to a community space (an integrated platform including discussions, docs, profiles, groups, etc.).
  • Routing page (6/9)
  • Space/platform (3/9)
  • Notable unique ideas:
  • “Manage Your Profile” link in footer on microsoft.com
  • “Social Media Guidelines” link in footer on intel.com
  • Using “Connect With Others” instead of “Community” in main nav of hp.com
  • Icons to share a specific page via multiple social channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, etc. in standard footer on ibm.com
  • Display title of a specific blog post on netapp.com
• Level of community visibility:
  • Most visibility: NetApp
  • Least visibility: SAP
• Lots of variation in terminology, placement, and display of community-related links, content, and tools.  No apparent standards, patterns, or best-practices yet.  (Not surprising.)

This is obviously just a snapshot in time of a handfull of sites but I find insights (and more questions) can be generated through an exercise like this.  As the integration of community spaces, content, and tools into corporate sites continues to evolve it will be interesting to see what types of patterns and best-practices emerge – or if any will emerge.

Are there patterns you’re beginning to see take shape in certain industries or types of sites?  Are there any examples you believe are effective and think should become a pattern?  Other thoughts?

Designing for Social

I just read a post on Core77 by Gentry Underwood from IDEO titled “Social Software: The Other ‘Design for Social Impact’.”  Gentry does a great job describing where the design of social software is now (as far as maturity) and how we need to approach the design of social software differently than most products or websites we currently work on.  A couple of key takeaways for me:

• Social software is in its infancy as far as its level of design maturity.
  Gentry equates it with where Windows and Mac were in the early 90s.  A lot of changes and refinements have taken place in the last 15-20 years.  Social software will likely go through a similar maturation process.
• We need to change our design approach.
  Up until recently web and software design has focused on human-computer interaction.  Social software requires that we understand and enable human-human interaction.
• Social software design requires design-by-iteration more than design-by-principle.
  “…a set of design principles simply can’t contain enough information to drive effective [social software] design on its own.”  Human interaction is complex.  The only way to design an environment that most effectively facilitates human-human interaction is to design, test, and iterate.  Gentry calls this “ethnography-by-prototype”.

Gentry’s article is definitely worth a read.  He’s also create a place to continue the discussion at http://socialsoftware.org

Moving Past Best-Guess Design

As I learn more about A/B testing I’m increasingly excited about its potential impact on the value design and the web can deliver.  During the design process we do our best to design the IA, interaction, and look and feel to be as effective as possible.  However, even after all our experience, patterns, and principles have been applied there is still a significant amount of best-guess involved.  Even usability tests, while definitely helpful, don’t give complete visibility into how a page or flow will actually perform.  For example, we recently ran a usability study on several pages describing Sun’s programs for students and educators.  One of the conclusions was that few people would click on one of links in one section of the page.  But when we look at the metrics, that link is one of the most clicked on the page.  Not exactly crystal-clear insight.  So are A/B tests valuable?

Recently there has been a lot of debate about Google’s approach to design.  Douglas Bowman may have kicked off the debate with his blog post earlier this year about why he left Google.  He describes his frustration with Google’s push to test everything and requiring every decision be driven by data.  He gives that now legendary example of Google testing 41 shades of blue to see which one best accomplished their goals.  Since then there have been many posts, articles, and conversations debating whether making design decisions based on metrics is good or if it takes the creative heart out of the design process.

But when I see the results of A/B tests I’m amazed at the insights I come away with.  When changing a couple of words results in a 20% improvement in conversion or Google sees differences in performance just by changing a color or the amount of white space, I realize the complexity of a human being interacting with a web site – and how little we really know about how various design elements impact our desired outcome(s).

Data analysis is not going to result in the definition of new strategic direction or a break-through concept.  Our creativity and the design process can give us the breakthrough idea and even get us 80% of the way toward the perfect solution.  We’ll never arrive at the 100% perfect solution but it seems that A/B testing can help us move from an 80% solution to an 85% solution. An improvement that can have a measurable impact on the bottom-line.

I think Irene Au, Google’s Director of User Experience summarizes it well in a recent article,

“Data informs decision-making but it’s less useful for conceiving and building conceptually new directions. It’s most useful for optimising and refining an established concept.”

I’m finding that not only can A/B testing give us insight into a specific project, but reviewing the results of other tests can be hugely informative for future design projects.

A great new resource is ABtests.com which I believe was recently launched by Joshua Porter, Performable, and KISSmetrics. The short and simple case studies provide a wealth of information (and may result in a few “wows” on your part).  Take a look at some of the projects.  I think you’ll learn a lot.

Other reference and resources:

• Google’s Own A/B & Multivariate Tests: Free On-Demand Webinar + Powerpoints
• Google Squeezes The Soul Out Of Design
• Ultimate A/B Testing resources and how I used them, Brian Cray

Healthcare Design

I recently watched this video of a talk at one of Mark Hurst’s Gel Conferences. The speaker is Bridget Duffy and the topic was the patient experience in healthcare facilities. It was powerful to hear and think about the impact of design on a patient’s emotions, treatment success, and ongoing health. Thankfully I’ve never had to stay in a hospital but I have experienced the uneasiness, feelings of vulnerability, and frustration our healthcare providers so often bring out.

We’re just now starting to move from discussing the design of graphics, products, and web sites to services, processes, experiences, and systems. It sounds as though the Cleveland Clinic is making great headway in rethinking the delivery of healthcare. I hope it spreads.