POC / Discovery / Experience Transformation / Telecom
Switching mid-stream from product to experience transformation with a projected savings of $3.3 million
Identify opportunities to ease friction and enable advocates to better serve their customers.
OVERVIEW: Cricket Wireless is a the leading prepaid wireless service provider, owned by AT&T. They offer nationwide 5G network, award winning service and a variety of partnerships with well known brands such as WWE and HBO Max.
SETTING THE STAGE:
Cricket's long-term success hinges on the in-store experience and the effectiveness of their point-of-sale (POS) system. They tasked us with conducting a pre-discovery to assess how their advocates (reps) interact with the POS application in-store. The goal was to validate the feedback from their advocates and ensure Cricket’s solving the right problems.
Cricket was very aware of the following challenges..
Built without advocates and customer experience in mind
Performance issues resulting in down time
Hard to customize for the needs of the business
What they wanted was…
Performant, secure, maintainable and well documented
Customizable to meet ever-changing business needs
Simple and easy to use. Reduce process and tech friction for better customer experience
To ultimately impact the business by…
Reducing the down time that negatively impacts sales
Increased sales figures from improved retail experience
Decreased maintenance and configuration costs
2022 - 2021
DURATION: 2 Weeks
PLATFORM: Point-of-Sale Web App
METHODOLOGIES:
- User Interviews
- Stakeholder Interviews
- In-Store Observation
- Alignment Workshops
- Demos and Document Intake
ROLE: Co-Researcher, BNR and P202
Discovery
We found that advocates provided positive feedback, and our observations revealed minimal friction when using the POS with customers. However, we identified areas for improvement both directly and indirectly related to the POS application.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Given the high advocate turnover, it's essential to keep all offerings and interfaces simple to support even the most inexperienced advocates
Advocates, call center staff, and corporate employees did not distinguish between the front-end and back-end of the POS system. Most of the issues identified by corporate were related to the back-end technology
We Learned about touch-less checkout as a workaround when the platform went down.
Cricket Advocate
Assistant Manager, Atlanta, GA
Early on, we realized that the POS system itself wasn’t the primary issue. While we addressed some POS-related opportunities, we shifted our focus to the overall in-store customer experience. In doing so, we uncovered several other areas for improvement that could enhance not only the customer experience but also Cricket’s ROI.
Alignment workshops were conducted to coordinate a recommendation with a strong point of view.
ID’D 8 AREAS OF FOCUS:
Future of POS
Training and Communications
Future of Retail
Analytics
POS Scalability
Constrained Processes
Technology
Call Center
Delving deeper
By exploring these 4 primary focus areas, we can pinpoint actionable opportunities that will enable Cricket to achieve noticeable improvements. These enhancements will provide immediate benefits to advocates and, ultimately, to customers.
CONSTRAINED PROCESSES
Explore ways to ease friction with the ACP and Port In processes.
GOAL: Take strain off of advocates and customers, and reduce transaction time.
CALL CENTER
Focus on enabling advocates to troubleshoot customer issues without needing the call center.
GOAL: Improve customer satisfaction rates, while reducing call center volume.
TRAINING AND COMMUNICATION
Ensure advocates are being consistently trained and in their ideal learning style.
GOAL: Reduce knowledge gaps, errors in-store, and provide better customer interactions.
POS SCALABILITY
Explore areas of efficiency while introducing POS UX best practices.
GOAL: Long-term design scalability. Ensuring simplicity stays at the forefront as functionality increases.
What’s next
-
All Focus Areas
To identify opportunities that enable advocates to better serve customers.Future Business Impact:
• Improve Customer Experience
• Increase Employee Satisfaction -
Constrained Processes
Find areas of opportunities to ease friction and improve customer interactions.Future Business Impact:
• Improve Customer Experience
• Reduce Transaction Times
• Increase New User Sign-Ups -
POS Scalability
Provide recommendations for future scalability of Aktivate, as new features and functionality are added over time.Future Business Impact:
• Reduce UX Inefficiencies
• Increase Employee Satisfaction -
Call Center
Look for ways to empower advocates, while minimizing call center volume to improve customer experience.Future Business Impact:
• Decrease Transaction Time
• Increase Employee Satisfaction
• Minimize Call Center Volume -
All Focus Areas
Ensure all suggested opportunities and recommendations are feasible.Future Business Impact:
• Reduced Down Times
• Increase Employee Satisfaction -
Training and Communication
Align training and communication in a way advocates like to be trained, using their ideal learning style to confidently serve customers.Future Business Impact:
• Improve Training Quality
• Increase Employee Satisfaction
• Improve Customer Experience
...I would highly recommend Bridget for any Sr. Leadership role as she’s extremely talented, thoughtful, a true Professional and knows how to deliver value added results.
We were lucky to have her on our project and I sincerely hope our paths cross again as she was an absolute delight to work with.
Rick Allen
Associate VP of Technology, Cricket Wireless
Navigating challenges
This was the first project where P202, our sister company, and Big Nerd Ranch collaborated. Along the way, we faced challenges with defining roles and responsibilities, navigating different processes, and managing bruised egos.
I remained neutral and took on the role of lead, working to unite the team. I coached both P202 and Big Nerd Ranch employees on effective collaboration, and I conducted retrospectives to give team members a space to discuss challenges in detail, with a focus on solutions rather than finger-pointing.
I successfully persuaded senior managers at Big Nerd Ranch to embrace our findings, which highlighted experience transformation rather than the initially requested product transformation. This shift in perspective was new to them, so I provided reassurance and maintained regular touch points to ensure their confidence in this approach.
When there was tension on the team due to how P202 and BNR approached projects differently, Bridget was able to bridge that gap with open communication, as well as proactively setting up meetings to gain alignment together. Without her, the project would have been significantly more difficult to accomplish.
Brittany Herold
Lead Experience Researcher, Stellar Elements (formerly Projekt 202)
Outcome
The next phase of the project was out on hold due to a reduction in spending. The projected savings from the POS platform alone were approximately $3.3 million. Additional savings and overall ROI from the larger opportunities were not yet scoped.
Internally, we improved our collaboration and adapted to a broader perspective. This project has emerged as one of Big Nerd Ranch's most successful discoveries, delivering one of the highest returns. Consequently, I have taken on a crucial role in driving sales by scoping projects, developing case studies, and creating pitch decks for the sales process.
This project strengthened the relationship between P202, our sister company, and Cricket, leading to several additional smaller projects with Cricket.