[Disclaimer] I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cellcard.

Key Pain-points with the Existing Design

I did a series of usability and desirability tests on the old app in order to validate some of the initial hypothesized issues and discovered other pain-points. I also tested our competitor app with the users as well.

1. Confusing Navigation

The app had both the bottom navigation bar and the hamburger menu (navigation drawer). The two navigation systems appeared to be of the same level yet are not talking to each other. When users navigate the pages through the drawer, there is no indication of what bottom navigation the page is on.

2. Fragmented User-Experience

All major journeys, especially transaction-type journeys within the app relied on SMS as feedbacks. Users wouldn't know if their subscription is successful or fail.

3. Unfriendly and inconsistent look & Feel

The font and colors used in the app were too small and not legible to the users. There were also not many branding elements to the app as well.

Why the revamp?

Cellcard App started out as a self-servicing app, with its focus on self-servicing, positioning itself as an additional channel to USSD and IVR.

The redesign aims to change that positioning:

• Resolve all the existing user-experiences pain-points

• Improve Engagement & Net Revenue: creating avenues beyond self-servicing to include digital lifestyle products and services

• Improve Acquisition & Market Share: providing seamless digital experience in becoming Cellcard subscribers

• Build Digital Stickiness: conversion of existing traditional users to digital.

• Improve Customer Relationship

Design Principles

Hand-holding

• Step-by-step user-journey: one action per page, not to overwhelm the users

• Clear communication, simple language

• Error-prevention & handling

Empowering & Transparency

• Consistent feedback on what going on: status

• Build trust: Telecom in Cambodia, in general, is not well trusted by customers, due to a lack of transparency or layers of barriers to relevant information regarding charging rates or expiration dates.

Consistent, Fun & On Brand

• Consistent use of call to action

• Cellcard was a premium brand → need to capture the young audience

• Visually fun

Solution

Registration Flow

The registration process is simplified both in the information collected and also the experience. Using step-by-step flow we were able to hand-hold users throughout the process, handling all the user errors one by one, and allow users to focus on the specific questions and answers. The accuracy of their answers is very important as we are trying to bridge the data gap in customer KYC.

Subscription Flow

The redesign and enhancement of the subscription flow are along with an enhancement of our billing systems. The goal is to transparently communicate the value of each product, compared to similar ones within the same package, the validity dates, and auto-renew option (which was a new introduction to our Telco products)

Recurring Top-ups

We found out after the launch that most drop-offs happen at the payment methods. This was due to not having the desired choice for the users to pay, and the user experience of each payment method has a lot of friction with layers and layers of security and authentication.

Understanding these drop-off points and the customer behavior of regular topping-up, we came up with the recurring top-up solution, allowing users to set up how frequent they want to top-up, how much, and from which source of fund. This reduces the friction of going through the payment gateways and also helps customers automate their top-up. The frequency options of the top-up tight directly to the validity duration of our subscriptions ( 7 days and 30 days)

Cellcard Club

Cellcard Club — our loyalty program is one of the most widely visited features within Cellcard App due to its reward and our aggressive marketing campaign, but it had a relatively high drop-off rate due to its user experience.

Design goals:

• Onboarding: as users need to sign up to join the program, they need to see the value of this free loyalty program they are getting as part of being Cellcard customers.

• Education: nature of gamification is engaging, rewarding but also challenging. The challenging aspects present friction and complexity, which requires some education.

• Transparency: communicates clearly how their stars work, earning dates and expiration dates, how they can redeem their prizes, and the status of their prizes

• Experience: improve the user journey and making the engagement delightful.

• Nudges: improve contextual notifications when users have unused chance to win prizes or if their stars are about to expire

Rollout (with known bugs)

The first rollout of the redesign was just 4 months after the project officially started ( both design and development).

The redesign was rolled out in different chunks, solving first the main flows that really impact the experience and transaction, such as the homepage, top-up, and subscribe flow. To prevent the look and feel from being too conflicting between the redesign and the old UI, we unified the headers and CTAs on all pages as a start.

Issues after the redesign

Soon after we launched the redesign, we found out that we have just solved the tip of the iceberg.

Technical Constraints

While resolving the issues, we had to come up with some quick wins, and one of them is a specially designed Under Maintenance page, that allows our customers to perform some basic self-service when the app undergoes maintenance, which was unfortunately quite often in the early days. This is not an ideal experience, but it prevented further damage to customer experience.

Another Redesign - the new Homepage

The homepage with the dashboard updated in real-time was really slowing the app loading time. And with the new use cases involving lifestyle and financial elements we aspired to include, the homepage we launched 6 months ago needs another enhancement.

Final Thoughts

The Cellcard App touches the main aspects of Cellcard business, which means the success of the product lies in close cross-functional collaboration among all relevant departments and stakeholders. It was an amazing learning journey to embed myself within the business and advocate for great customer experience while balancing the business needs and technical constraints. As the core team was very small, I was able to wear many heads, learning a lot from our PO, BA, PM, and all the amazing developers.

💖Shout out to Arvindd, Almaz, Bong Sambo and everyone who have made it happened!