Domain
Media & Telecommunication
Platform
Mobile application
Services
Research, Strategy, Design
Powerful Workflow Management Super App for on-field ACT staff
ACT (Atria Convergence Technologies) is India’s 5th largest internet service provider spread across 8 Indian states, providing both FTTH (Fiber-to-the-home) & digital television services to its 2 million+ subscribers. ACT approached us to unify their 6 disparate applications that connected their internal team leads & on-field staff. The goal of this service redesign was to build a single end-to-end & simplified ecosystem that enhanced team efficiency & productivity, from the ground up, through seamless communication.
The
challenges
ACT was operating across complex workflows & processes dedicated to different functions & modules, none of which were fully digitized or user-centric in nature. There were zero touchpoints that captured data from all services (from new connection to issue resolution) in real time & hence a lot of lags, delays, & inaccurate data points kept leaking into the system. Lack of end-to-end digitized services meant manual tracking, updates sharing, & other operations performed on a strictly physical basis.
The
solutions
Our end design digitally transformed the complete service design for the backend operations of delivering internet to millions of homes, from installing a new connection to any service issue to any of the connections across multiple regions & operations levels – on ground field staff, team leads managing the on-ground staff, & managers managing these team leads. The design solution, optimized for both web & mobile, ensured real time tracking of data from a multitude of touchpoints (physical & digital) with a fully digitized ecosystem driving smoother operations, seamless collaboration, & scaling up of ACT’s market reach across the country.
Our
research
Extensive qualitative & quantitative research conducted across all hierarchies within the ACT enterprise – from on-ground field agents to technicians to executives to managers across all functions & customer segments (new/existing) to identify critical gaps & inefficiencies within the operations. This enabled us understanding & mapping the entire complex workflow & process and pinpoint which services/operations could be reimagined in the digital realm for better output.
Painpoints discovered
Manual
Tracking
Call-based or end-of-day based tracking of staff making operations inefficient & inaccurate with considerable lags in issue resolution
No Real Time
Data
None of the data points collected were in real time as most of them were manually entered into the systems by the on-field staff & managers
Not
User-centric
Field staff were asked to shared updates every hour that brought in lot of interruptions & lags in the on-field operations
Complex
Workflows
Complicated processes & workflows with negligible digitization turning timely & seamless operations management impossible
Our
strategy
From the insights collected in the research stage we realized a lot of these services were not user-centric in nature. Frequent manual updates, call-based issue resolution, & inaccurate data tracking was increasing the response time. We planned on restructuring the entire backend service design which meant fully digitizing internal processes to make them more efficient, adding more convenience & accuracy to how staff shared updates with their respective managers. We also created multiple user flows optimized for different types of ACT’s consumers thus reimaging the entire enterprise design in a swift, digital, & seamless ecosystem making lives simpler for ACT’s staff & ACT’s end users.
Data Visualization
Enabling ACT’s staff get a quick snapshot of all data inputs in one go
Real time tracking
Accurate data-points available 24*7 for different functions
Empowering users
By facilitating seamless management of on-field staff
Design
execution
Easy-to-read graphs, real-time data visualization, goal-oriented dashboards & more paving the way for better performance tracking. We reimagined the entire navigational pattern to ensure all necessary information was available to the users at all times. A highly consistent visual design language along with custom iconography, with different colors to denote different services of ACT, was implemented simplifying an otherwise complex enterprise workflow.
With even the minutest of the details (such as materials used) captured real time by the enterprise workflow management app, along with all functions – sales, operations, compliance, & more, the management was able to get a complete holistic view of micro to macro operations within the the complex enterprise.
Information Architecture
The extensive IA covered tree maps, content models and visual models, detailing out every minute aspect of the application.
Low fidelity wireframes
Our wireframes comprised of all use cases – from enquiries to installation to service tickets, for all end-user groups, & all levels of ACT staff, increasing visibility & accuracy of the system as a whole.
Visual design
The visual design for ACT enterprise workflow management was optimized for power users (unlike B2C platforms), since here the users (ACT staff) were using this platform constantly & for longer durations. With high contrast, usability, & ease of discoverability of information, everything available on-the-go, the visual design elements made monitoring extremely clear & convenient. Users can now get valuable information on progress made, on-track/off-track services, SLAs met, critical cases, addresses/unaddressed issues with one quick glance. Users could now also toggle between multiple modes/roles (sales, marketing, operations, etc), specially designed for ACT staff handling multiple roles. Custom iconography, infographics, & data analytics turned overwhelming information deluge into a swift, to-the-point, & accurate set of insights. Delightfully effective features such as personalized calendars bestowed more visibility & flexibility to ACT’s staff.
The
outcomes
The entire service redesign & digital transformation of ACT enterprise drastically cut down the avg. response & issue resolution time. The accuracy of data shot up along with customer service & satisfaction score. This opened vistas for ACT to scale up faster & enter newer geographies, markets, & demographics. As a result, our design solutions made them better prepared for sudden & unpredictable changes in consumer behavior such as during the Pandemic where they were able to respond efficiently to the surge in new connections.
Eager to see how design & design thinking can future-proof your product? Connect with us here.
