Agent Tools
We were approached by the Cox Care team in charge of managing customer service agents. They needed a tool to streamline their agent sales experience to improve conversion rates and reduce call handle time.
We were approached by the Cox Care team in charge of managing customer service agents. They needed a tool to streamline their agent sales experience to improve conversion rates and reduce call handle time.
What it is & Who it's for
An all new internal-facing, enterprise-level customer service and sales tool for call center agents with specific training levels.
My Role
Lead designer collaborating cross-functionally with business and product to map core user flows and establish product requirements. I conducted infield research with call center agents. Leading a team of up to 2 designers, I provided historical/strategic context, conducted infield research, user testing, and delivered an enterprise-level design system in addition to the final product.
goals
This initiative focuses on three core goals: enhancing the user experience for internal sales agents, ensuring a consistent customer experience regardless of agent tenure, and optimizing performance through key performance indicators (KPIs).
challenges
Primary challenges included backend gaps and coordinating multiple APIs into one seamless UX as well as managing competing stakeholder priorities which posed a risk of diverting focus from the tool's intended audience, internal sales agents.
Know Your Customer
View all of your customer's account data at first glance. Primary actions are enabled once you authenticate. Quickly see the customer's service tier, active services and serviceability so you can immediately form a sales strategy unique to that customer.
Flexible Workspace
Sales conversations are constantly evolving and so should your workspace. Depending on where you are in the conversation, flexible panels expand and contract with each panel's content changing dynamically based on your previous selections, delivering a reactive, consistent sales experience.
Schedule, Validate, Confirm
You've received consent from the customer to move forward. They're excited about their new services. Let's make sure you finish and close the sale smoothly with quick conflict resolution, an intuitive scheduler, and a clear and transparent order confirmation.
AI Powered Agent Support
I independently created and pitched the Smart Assistant enhancement after observing agents relying on third-party apps and physical reminders. This feature provides real-time prompts to optimize sales, personalize customer experiences, and plays a crucial role in governing compliance materials.
Streamlined Training
Expanding on the Smart Assistant's training, I identified an opportunity to streamline agent and manager training. Original methods took up to 12 weeks for agents to transition to active selling. The Smart Assistant enables managers and trainers to view all prompts and actions that occurred during a call. They can jump to specific time-stamped locations in recorded calls, significantly reducing agents' training time before joining the sales floor.
Results
With the first release of the new tool, our team and business KPIs saw meaningful results at scale across 500k+ calls every month.
Technology and user journey
Collaborating with technology and business, we crafted comprehensive user journeys, considering three layers of the tool—the customer (blue), the agent (red), and the back-end technology (yellow). Documenting all three layers allowed us to maintain both a zoomed-in and zoomed-out perspective when creating solutions.
Consolidated Workflow
Previously, agents utilized multiple internal and third party tools to complete a sale. This created friction for both customers and agents. With the new tool, all critical features and functions from the previous tools are streamlined into a more powerful one that functions seamlessly across all business lines of the company.
Original Experience
The original experience was an assembly of multiple tools, additions, and widgets that had been built on top of over the last decade. It was slow, difficult to navigate, and sometimes redundant. In addition to the multiple experiences/tools that an agent would have to use in a single call, they also had to rely on printed out documents for certain orders, creating hurdles in not only accuracy of the documents but governance as well.
Design Iteration
Designing in 2 week sprints, we remotely tested with agents to receive design feedback. We then created design responses based on this feedback as well as new technology capabilities and discoveries. Below is a sample of the evolution for the design of the product panel within the Quote Builder portion of the tool.
Collaborating Remotely
Working with a fully remote team of designers, developers, product owners, business stakeholders and more we needed a way to document feedback while being able to design and explore in real time. We relied heavily on collaboration tools such as Invision Freehand and Prototyping. We were able to not only collaborate in real time, but also make edits during our business hours and have our partners review and provide feedback in theirs, therefore allowing meaningful work to get done outside of the few hours that our work days overlapped.
