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PROBLEM

The Asurion Hub serves as the new messaging platform for Asurion's frontline experts, who handle over 7 million customer tech support needs and inquiries annually. Since the experts converse with multiple customers simultaneously, prolonged resolution times can result in higher costs for the business. To optimize efficiency and cost-effectiveness, how can we best support experts in achieving faster resolutions? 

SOLUTION

By introducing a canned message feature for experts, we could reduce session resolution times by one minute, resulting in a decrease in cost per service event and an estimated annual cost savings of around $2,530,000 for the business. A reduction of five minutes per session could yield even greater cost savings, with potential savings of over $12 million annually.

OUTCOME

Despite being recently launched, this feature has already been widely adopted by Asurion's experts. Over the first week, the usage of canned messages by our experts skyrocketed, with the number of messages sent increasing by a staggering 1,867% from day one to day seven. We anticipate a sustained reduction in session resolution times and average handle times. With this tool, experts can work more efficiently, ultimately increasing productivity and driving meaningful cost savings for the company.

While canned messaging was available in the previous messaging platform, it was filled with issues. One key problem was the lack of oversight and regulation by operations, which resulted in experts being able to create and modify canned messages at will. This led to issues with grammar, spelling, formatting, and tone. In addition, experts often sent canned messages at inappropriate times, duplicated messages, and used messages that did not match the customer's tone or sounded robotic in the conversation. Instead of using canned messages as a tool to assist customers, I observed experts relying on them as a crutch. This not only led to issues with customer experience, but also undermined the effectiveness of canned messages.

When presented with the opportunity to create canned messages from scratch, I was determined to approach it differently than in the previous platform. I led the team in opting to launch with 75 professionally crafted messages, organized into 5 distinct categories. As part of this approach, experts do not have the ability to create or save their own messages in the canned message feature. Furthermore, the team leveraged Contentful for content management of our canned messages, enabling team members or stakeholders to effectively regulate, manage, and modify any message as needed.

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In the previous messaging platform, canned messages were buried amidst a cluttered array of other tools in the right sidebar. I set out to address this issue by devising a more user-friendly approach. I recognized that canned messages serve esssentially as a typing shortcut for our experts, so it made sense to position them in close proximity to the expert's chat input. I explored several potential solutions for this idea, including various ways to open the canned messages and a fuzzy search capability. Following my investigation and creation of several wireframes, I prototyped two versions of the feature and requested feedback from our experts.  

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Based on feedback from experts, I was able to refine the direction of our canned message feature. I received overwhelming requests to launch the feature with a button, rather than a keyboard shortcut. Additionally, experts provided valuable insights on the messages' content, formatting, search functionality, and the ability to add personality. These suggestions were taken into consideration during the development process to ensure a user-friendly and effective tool for our experts.

Although the canned message feature was only launched recently, it has already been embraced by Asurion's experts. During the first week of launch, the number of canned messages sent by our experts significantly increased, by an astounding 1,867% from the first day to the seventh day. Each expert uses an average of 50 canned messages per shift. One expert noted, "I'm twice as fast as before."  We expect to see a continuous improvement in session resolution times and average handle times, as this tool helps our experts work more efficiently. 

MALLORY MICHAEL