Verizon Best Promotional Savings Messaging

Product Design, Prototyping

When joining Verizon, new customers are presented with a range of decision points in their shopping journey. Given the wide variety of devices, plans and promotions on offer, many customers have asked “Am I getting the best deal?” before committing to a purchase. Helping customers confidently answer this question would build trust and potentially improve conversion for the shop funnel, where customers often cite promotions as a key driver of their decision to join Verizon.

Primary objectives

• Support an existing shopping flow

• Show customers their current selection as well as the greatest possible promotional savings

My role

As Lead Product Designer overseeing the new customer shopping flow, I targeted the promotions experience as an area for improvement.

Customer insights and ideation

I partnered with a user testing manager to uncover insights and translate concepts into features that address customer behaviors and motivations. I drafted the test brief and created prototypes for qualitative testing.

Collaboration with stakeholder teams

I collaborated with a Product Manager, as well as representatives from the plans, promotions and content strategy teams.

Deliverables

I delivered flow diagrams, wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes at different stages throughout the design process.

Existing customer journey

Verizon’s new customer shop journey is a linear flow based on a hub and spoke organizational model. Once a customer selects the phone they would like to purchase, they proceed through a linear flow to configure that device before checkout. The steps required to reach checkout include 1) phone configuration and promotion opt-in 2) viewing an upsell for device accessories 3) any steps required to qualify for the selected promotion 4) plan selection 5) viewing an upsell for device protection.

Recommendation driven flow

New customers are first able to select a promotion on their desired phone’s product detail page. At any time, there may be multiple competing offers for a single phone. Because Verizon’s promotions are tied to a customer’s plan selection, an eligible plan must be selected later in the flow to receive the maximum promotional value. Selecting an ineligible plan will result in a reduced promotional value being applied in the cart.

Discovery

This promotional structure complicates a key decision point in the flow, plan selection. In conversations with the Plans stakeholders, a complex set of competing interests were revealed as drivers of the design of the page. While educating customers on the pricing and features of the available plans, the page is also designed to incentivize the selection of more expensive plans - highlighting data speeds, third party plan benefits, and legally required disclosures. 

At this point, adding additional messaging to this step of the experience would likely overwhelm customers rather than communicate the desired information effectively.

Prototyping

Following conversations with the Plans stakeholders, we decided to create a new step in the flow highlighting the maximum promotional value available, in the event that the customer chose a plan affording them a reduced promotional value. Creating a new page rather than a modal would reinforce the choice the customer had already made while offering them the opportunity to make a change, rather than interrupting their forward process with a modal. This page would only be shown to customers who had not selected plans affording them the maximum promotional value.

The design of the new page highlights the possibility of additional savings in the header. The subheader reflects their current savings, and the plan change necessary to receive the maximum promotional value. In the section below, recommended plans are highlighted for both phones the customer has selected, showing the difference in monthly pricing for each of the plans in addition to descriptive text about the plans. The customer also has the ability to revisit the plans page by clicking on the inline CTA. The primary CTA on the page implements the suggested plan changes, while ‘Keep my plans' allows the customer to proceed without modification to their selections.

Concept validation

I worked with a member of the UX research team to create a test brief outlining the testing goals. At this stage it was appropriate to organize a small scale qualitative test around the hypothesis - that this additional step in the flow would improve customer confidence. We tested the flow with 10 non-Verizon customers who would experience the shop journey for the first time while keeping in mind the promotional value as a driver for their purchase.

It was necessary to test the complete shop journey from phone selection through cart, while seeking feedback around comprehension of various decision points. Only feedback relevant to the promotions is shared below.

Participants found the plan change recommendation helpful

After initially selecting a promotion on the Phone product detail page, some participants missed the promotional value messaging on the plans page. Participants wanted more clarity on which plans were compatible with their selected promotion. Most stated that they felt the standalone plan change recommendation page was helpful, while some felt that the recommendation was trying to force them into a plan they did not want.

Some participants were unclear on how to make the desired plan change

Some insight into the usability of the experience was also offered by participants. Some were not clear on the next steps necessary to change their plans from the new page.

Participants tended to select a plan based on their needs, rather than a promotion

While some participants chose plans with a promotion in mind, most chose plans based on third-party benefits, or pricing alone. This perhaps points to a direction for future research on the structure of promotions. Is it possible to shift a significant number of users to more expensive plans with promotions?

Outcomes

Initial testing feedback was generally prositive and provided direction for improvement in page content and structure.