Brilliant Basics - The Automobile Association App

Revolutionising the AA's app that now offers self-service journeys and offers a personalised experience

BACKGROUND

There are three principles that I always pride myself on when creating user-focused solutions:

Make it personal

Tailored to everyone's personal needs
Consider different use cases and mental models
Understand each user

Make it inclusive for all

Meet accessibility standards
Consider all current and future challenges
Consider who you are designing for

Make a difference

Consider all possibilities and outcomes
Purposeful, evidence based design
Create something intuitive and meaningful

OVERALL GOALS

The AA's overall goal is to find different ways to make managing your vehicles and driving lives simpler, smarter and easier.

An app-first, omnichannel service
- Personalised services
- Data driven
- Well-informed, self service journeys
The ability to scale for the future

Customer outcomes

More ways to manage your driving lives intuitively yourselves
Greater efficiency in completing tasks
Reduced traffic into call centres
Increased customer satisfaction

Business needs

Increased user engagement with the app
Increased regular volume of AA customers
Increased revenue through AA products

THE PROBLEM

The AA App is a tool that has seen increasing traffic into its services every year as part of the Brilliant Basics strategy - a plan to offer personalised services products to customers with a simple, clean experience.

Many customers of the AA rely on contact centres to perform tasks, buy products or use our services. However, these are only open during specific hours during the day, with a high abandon rate of 13% of all calls.

As such, we want to offer personalised, digital services to customers to help them manage their cover with us whenever they want, and reduce congestion within the contact centres, as well as provide clarity to other products and services that may be of use to them.

HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE

June 2021 - January 2022

THE TEAM

2 Digital Designers

1 UX Copywriter

1 Product Owner

1 Business Analyst

4 Developers

KEY GOAL

To lead the first stage of the AA's "Brilliant Basics" strategy where we create personalised, simplified self-service experiences for customers on the AA app

PREVIOUS INSIGHTS

Customers have a difficult time when trying to manage their vehicles and driving lives

Prior assumptions

People are overwhelmed trying to manage their vehicles

Validating assumptions

They have anxiety about what could go wrong

Identifying key improvements

Customers frustrated they can’t self-serve
They want to manage everything in one place

DATA INSIGHTS

The current user experience for managing breakdown cover displays strong levels of frustration and apathy towards finding the AA's services

Over 79 million site visits, yet only 20,900 discover breakdown cover on the website
40% bouncing out of breakdown cover pages immediately
50% of app complaints are for layout and navigation
21% of users who try to upgrade end up buying new breakdown cover instead of upgrading their existing breakdown cover
Customers tend to not know what is and isn't included on their breakdown cover
Customers expect more from the app
Customers tend to dislike the contact centre but use it because it seems the most familiar to them

"They've just upgraded me so I can't remember what those upgrades were... I think I didn't have Home Start and maybe European cover"

- Participant 2

"I'm left still with a lot of questions, it doesn't go into a lot of depth..."

- Participant 1

"It's not simple to find it at all...It would be better if the cover was found on the home page"

- Participant 7

"Too many clicks. And they open up in a window. It genuinely felt like I was jumping through too many hoops"

- Participant 5

"It seems it's all focused around NEW CUSTOMERS. There isn't much around how EXISTING MEMBERS can upgrade. I only worked it out through the process of elimination that I have to call... and that's not how it should be."

- Participant 4

USER INSIGHTS

Research shows high levels of disconnect between customers and patrols & contact centres

Over 50% of calls that colleagues handle are low complexity, account admin changes. Customers don't feel in control of their own breakdown cover
The AA website is periodically out of service which means that customers often cannot log in to view their accounts
Duplicate webpage links and high queue times for contact centres means that customers often have confusing online experiences and get frustrated
Users expect patrol teams to be able to perform the same tasks as call centre colleagues, which leaves them feeling isolated and vulnerable when they can't

"They expect to change it all in one place...You have to explain that there's a difference between the two sides of the company and they don't get it"

- Patrol colleague 1

"They don't have all the information on them so they panic when broken down and get frustrated that they can't perform certain tasks"

- Patrol colleague 2

With this insight, I developed the following problem statement...

"UK Drivers need an easy way to manage their cover so that they can bother less about car management and more about planning the next escape"

DESIGN EXPLORATION

I prioritised providing exposure to the AA's services that offer the customer a personalised experience. Our parameters were....

Make it easy to find services and products
Don't inundate the page with sales info
Make it an effortless experience to know what is and isn't available to them
Make it a personal experience that utilises data that is tailored to their specific needs
Allow for a natural and seamless journey through the app so the customer doesn't retrace their steps

"It's not simple to find it at all...It would be better if the cover was found on the home page"

- Participant 12

"I would expect to find my policy information in my accounts section, so naturally I would go there"

- Participant 3

I haven't really used the website outside of my account"

- Participant 2

Using card sorting exercises with users, I was able to gather insights into how driving customers expect to interact and navigate throughout the app. The information architecture created identified which content was deemed most important, as well as where the upgrade information would sit within the user journey.

Customers tend to go to their account for policy details and cover level modifications.

Open card sorting tests showcased that participants believe account and policy details are related and should be grouped together
Testing with the existing app showed that participants tended to go through their policy details on the app to look for upgrade information
Participants also tend to look for upgrades information at the top of the page before scrolling down, so it was clear it was a high priority area in the content hierarchy

After the creation of the information architecture, I created wireframes to map out the overall journey flow for a self-service purchase journey.

Wireframes were then fleshed out into high-fidelity prototypes and tested with users to assess functionality as well as satisfaction. UI components were then developed to allow for a better user experience, and collaboration with developers was integral to optimising the use of APIs to call back personalised information that help customers make informed decisions.

APPROACH

The design process was split into three phases to ensure that we can offer a personalised, digital service for customers that optimises their decision making and confidence in using the app.

Phase 1: Offering an entry point in the app that allows for visibility of services available to customers, whilst still guiding them towards contact centres.

Phase 2: Empowering customers to make better informed decisions when deciding what they want to upgrade.

Phase 3: Allow customer to full payment journeys to be able to modify cover types as well as cover level, as well as include special, personalised offers that would suit customers' driving needs and habits

PHASE 1

50% of upgrades to breakdown cover are opportunistic, meaning that customers don't know they have the option to modify their cover until prompted by contact centres.

By providing better signposting to the customer the options available to them, we hope to see the number of opportunistic upgrades decrease from over 58,000 customers by 20%. Through research with customers, I realised where this entry point within the app can be, as well as how customers want to interact with the app.

Existing app experience looking at breakdown cover

Phase 1 saw the introduction of a click to call CTA into the policies screen so that customers can locate the number to call much faster

Research showcased that customers felt that the current journey experience catered more towards new customers and neglected existing customers
They found it extremely frustrating trawling through numerous pages to find the contact number, and often would give up halfway through the journey
I simplified their cover information and provided a click to call CTA to reduce the time spent finding out where to call
As such, I created wireframes that use the cover at a glance section and accounts section as entry points into the journey

Cheaper
Quicker to implement
Immediate increase in participant satisfaction and findability

Phase 1 MVP

Things to consider....

API calling back breakdown cover information
Signposting at entry point on home page
Price visibility
If the customer is already broken down at point of call

PHASE 2

Participants would like to see more information about cover level options available to them so they have the confidence to make better informed decisions

After providing an entry point to the upgrade journey, we wanted to empower customers with greater product information so that they can feel confident in their decision making as well as feel trust with the AA brand that we are trying to offer services to them that will help their driving lives

Phase 2 saw much better user engagement as they were able to filter in and out of the pages to find product information and make better informed decisions

Testing showed that participants like having a brief description of each product, but do not want to be inundated with information as it fills them with anxiety and makes it feel like the AA are just trying to sell them products
I removed the accordion style function on the existing app that showcases all the information on one page and offered a separate page to view the information
Participants preferred this style as it enabled them to be able to scroll through and interact with all the features in the policies page
Participants enjoyed having more product information on another page as it allowed them to filter information faster and reduce the amount of time spent on the app

"I quite like being able to click in and out of the different options as I can decide what it is that I want to look at"

- Participant 5

"The information is easy to read and understand and it's not in your face"

- Participant 1

"I'd like to see the price available but it's good to know that I can't choose it if I'm broken down"

- Participant 7

"It's easy to know where to go, I don't feel lost at all"

- Participant 2

We also looked at enhancing signposting on the home page to further guide participants to the right area to manage their breakdown cover

We had to ensure that signposting did not turn participants away, as research showed that prominent sales erodes trust for customers
Through various iterations, we discovered which methods of notifying participants about personalised services solidified brand loyalty as well as understanding essential to non-essential content hierarchy

Design decisions

Subtle cross-sells with clear point of sales
Highlighting key actions that need to be taken
Showcasing essential information only

Notifications (Designs by Steph Brooks)

“It’s easy to spot when I need to renew because of the pink tag”

- Participant 3

“I get put off instantly when a company is always trying to advertise me something”

- Participant 4

“I want more information (to make a purchase). I don’t feel comfortable purchasing without all the details”

- Participant 1

“If I have breakdown cover I have chosen the level I want - upgrades is annoying, irrelevant”

- Participant 5

PHASE 3

Participants struggle with dealing with contact centres. The queue times are too long which often leads to dropouts, and they would like to have the option to self-serve confidently and comfortably

The journey was developed into a full end-to-end experience matching our customer purchase mental models, from the point of opening the app all the way through to purchase. We had to collaborate with external teams at the payment journey, incorporating the use of 3D Secure as part of the banking security measures, which also required further collaboration with the developers when utilising lag times with APIs and customer information that we can pull back and display.

Participants felt empowered to make informed decisions on if they want to upgrade their cover level, as well as were provided greater clarity on what is and isn't included in their cover
There was a significant commitment to wanting to use the app more instead of using the contact centres as a result of feeling like the app could now provide services that were previously not available
We found huge success in not making the participants feel anxious about sale opportunities, and they felt greater trust in the brand that we are helping them manage their driving lives much better

Due to latency with APIs loading in, we had to implement the inclusion of a loading page to inform the customer that product information was loading
This could take up to 7 seconds

“It's nice to know I don't have to call in to do this. We should have been able to do this before”

- Participant 1

“I understand exactly what's available to me here”

- Participant 7

“It's easy to understand where everything is and what I'm buying...I would like to have the option of buying more than one thing though”

- Participant 4

“Can't think of anything else to make this any more simple, it does exactly what it says it will do”

- Participant 3

Creating an intuitive and inclusive self-service journey requires collaboration and consistency across all platforms

Frequent collaboration with designers and product owners from both the app and web team to ensure consistency across all platforms
Regular weekly catch ups to discuss blockers and design decisions
Frequent user testing together with web-platform designers
Regular discussions with developers to understand technical differences between web and app platforms

Web journey entry point (Designs by Steve Hartley)

App journey entry point

Current figures

16% increased app interactions (314,000 interactions in January 2022 across Your Account and Transaction visits)
700,000 monthly app users (above 600,000 target)
30% call centre reduction (above 20% target)

*Numbers across IOS and Android,

Improvement, CSAT and social channels monitored moving forward

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