About the project
Currys PC World offer a repair service on household appliances like ovens and washing machines. But technicians out on the road were finding that last minute cancellations were playing havoc with their schedules.
Currys came up with a solution – a same day repair service.
Technicians with downtime would respond to local customers wanting a same day repair. Win win. Customers get their stuff fixed quickly and the repair team spend more of their time repairing.
I led a team of three to design the service from scratch.
Early sketch visualising the brief.
Making a start
We visualised the repair service as three components; 1. the customer experience; 2. the technician experience; 3. the booking and communication system that links the two together. It didn’t take long to realise we knew next to nothing about any of them.
We needed to see and hear first hand how things worked. That meant accompanying the repair team out on the road and spending time in the contact centres to understand the bookings process.
A notebook full of answers (and more questions) later we were able to create a detailed user journey illustrating how the repair service worked from start to finish. Getting this down on one page (a large one) was a great foundation. It allowed us to see how we might create a same day version of the repair service and also highlighted the potential obstacles.
Combined user journey for customer, contact centre and repair team
UX challenges
We soon worked out that same day repair could only be offered on a select group of appliances – those that could be fixed using the standard range of parts carried by all technicians. We created a list (which quickly became a database) of qualifying ‘cases’ based on four criteria: appliance type, make, model and nature of problem.
Early sketches to work out qualifying criteria
abc
Customers could book a repair over the phone or online. Phone bookings were straightforward. Contact centre staff were experts at gathering the info required to diagnose a problem.
Online proved more challenging. We had to be confident about the information customers were submitting, so hints and tips about where to find things like model and serial numbers were important. We also needed to minimise the risk of human error – which is common when typing random strings of letters and numbers.
UX solutions
Rather than ask customers to type information into empty fields most questions were presented as a choice of options (radio buttons and drop down menus). This removed most of the human error risk and allowed specific models to be accurately identified.
The question set resembled a decision tree where the answer to one question determined the options presented for the next.
Radio buttons and drop downs minimised the risk of human error.
— PROJECT NAME
Name
— ROLE
Role
— DATE
Date
Advice about where to find technical information like serial numbers was provided, and useful hints were available for questions where customers had to type a response. Hints were written in plain english and included a supporting visual. This improved the chances of capturing the correct information first time round.
Clear instructions for difficult to find information.
— PROJECT NAME
Name
— ROLE
Role
— DATE
Date
Customers who met the key criteria were offered a same day repair. The rest of the booking process was straightforward. We made sure to explain the important next steps like receiving a call from a technician to confirm the arrival time.
Completing the booking process.
Outcome
Same day repair ran as a pilot scheme in select UK regions. Feedback was positive with over 85% of customers and technicians rating the service as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Work is under way to offer the service across a greater product range and to extend coverage to more areas of the UK.
Full set of mobile wireframes.