Improving Customer Experience at Telco Wins International Service Design Award

MADRID, Dec. 4, 2017 /CNW/ - How do you transform the experience of renewing a cell phone contract to make it more rewarding for customers while simultaneously reducing the cost to serve? That was the question Bridgeable, a Toronto-based service design firm, and TELUS, one of Canada's largest telecommunications providers answered when they teamed up on a project to reimagine TELUS's renewals experience.

The project, "Redefining the TELUS Renewals Experience" has been awarded "Best Commercial Project" at the 2017 Service Design Global Awards in Madrid.

Finalists for this prestigious international award were selected by a cross-section of leading service design practitioners and thought-leaders from around the world. The four shortlisted projects are recognized as benchmarks of world class service design. 

About the Project

Redefining the TELUS Renewals Experience
In 2015 Bridgeable, a service design consultancy teamed up with the service design team at TELUS, one of the three largest mobile service providers in Canada, to make the renewals experience more valuable for customers while radically reducing the cost to serve.

There was opportunity to improve the customer experience for those renewing a cellphone contract and drive higher Likelihood to Recommend (L2R) scores. In doing so, TELUS could also see positive impacts to operational expenditures per customer while improving satisfaction scores.

Bridgeable and TELUS brought together diverse stakeholders from all levels of the organization to co-create solutions with customers and frontline staff, and created a service that personalized offers for the customer based on their history and usage. They prototyped an omni-channel service approach, seamlessly integrating the service in the stores, call center, web and promotional channels to deliver an easier and more tailored experience. Finally, they prototyped an "unboxing" experience – making the process of receiving and setting up a new phone easier for customers and reducing the likelihood that they would need to visit a TELUS store for assistance.

Initial scaled tests have shown a significant improvement in customer satisfaction ratings and a reduction in end-to-end costs for TELUS. They are confident the same impact will be repeated on a national scale. 

In the end, customers are benefiting from a more valuable and differentiated telecommunications service, co-created to address their pain points and preferences, while TELUS is working more seamlessly across channels and dramatically reducing the cost to serve.

Chris Ferguson, CEO at Bridgeable, said of the award recognition, "This project is something we are extremely proud of – the result of many years of methodology development, a culture of continuous experimentation and adaptation, and hard work and practice. This type of change and impact isn't possible without a great partner like TELUS. We were privileged to have worked them."

July Mellett, Director, Service Strategy & Design at TELUS, said, "We are unbelievably proud of our impact, our partnership, and the change we were able to make in this endeavor." She added that "Receiving this award shows that service design can have real impact in driving organizational success and change."

About the Service Design Awards
The Service Design Award, curated by the Service Design Network, is the premier international award for service design. The Award recognizes work of an exceptional standard in the field of service design by both students and professionals.

About Bridgeable
Bridgeable is an award-winning service design firm based in Toronto, Canada that employs a human-centered approach to understand and address complex challenges and the people affected. Working with clients across the world, we bridge the gap between what is known (data, analytics, insights, strategy) and what we might do (services, interactions, customer experiences).

With extensive experience in sectors ranging from healthcare, financial services, consumer, and public sector, our multi-disciplinary team of strategists, designers, and researchers help our clients solve complex problems by translating human understanding into real innovation opportunities for their customers.

www.bridgeable.com

SOURCE Bridgeable