Nowadays, self-service technologies are becoming ever-present. From airport bag drops to pension management systems, these systems promise convenience and efficiency. However, as many frustrated users can attest, self-service solutions often fall short of their promise.
How not to do it
Picture this. 6.00 am Gatwick airport, Easyjet self-service bag drop area. An object lesson in how to get self-serve technology wrong. Nearly half of all the bag drops were flashing red and customers were tetchily waiting for the one customer service assistant!
To be fair, matters weren’t improved by our flight from Bristol being cancelled the evening before just as we were about to board. Cue a mad scramble, a £370 taxi journey and a sleepless night in a Premier Inn.
Anyway, those designing self-serve systems all too often ignore the human dimension, expecting people to behave rationally or as they would like them to.
The issue with the bag drop was that the baggage tag had to be attached to the top of a bag or the scanner couldn’t read it. Most people just attached it at the end of the bag.
You do wonder if the designers trialled the system on real sleep deprived customers to see how they fared?
So, what does that mean for pensions?
The current trend is to try and get members online serving themselves, reducing the call on valuable administration resource and improving the customer experience.
A lot of time and money goes into the design of websites, but there’s a key point of failure meaning that some people may not register or if they do, they may not revisit the site to use it. That’s the registration process itself.
The traditional approach is Username Password and one-time code. If customers navigate this, then the next barrier can be using the site after first registration. Pension websites aren’t used on a frequent basis and all too often people forget their login credentials.
I recently spent an entire train journey to London trying to reset a password for a site I used infrequently.
We saw one scheme recently where 50% of all inbound calls were for password resets.
The net effect of making it hard for customers is that they give up and pick up the phone to get what they need. A bad outcome for everyone.
So what’s the solution to make it easy?
We developed a phone app a few years ago with a key design principle being easy to access.
People got very used to scanning QR codes with their phone cameras during Covid. It’s a quick and easy way to download apps or access content via a smartphone.
So why not personalise the QR code and make that the password? That’s what we did.
The customer then enters their own National Insurance Number and selects a 4-digit PIN, like a banking app. The phone is tagged to the member so all they need to do next time is use the 4-digit PIN.
Customer satisfaction with the process has been in excess of 90% and uptake of the app well above that of traditional websites, in excess of 70% for one scheme. We are also seeing up to 20% of customers who have the app, using it on a monthly basis.
So, the learning from all this is to design systems and processes that work with human nature and around how people behave, not how you’d like them to! When we design for humans as they are, rather than as we wish them to be, everyone benefits – users and service providers alike.
How Mantle Services can help
By prioritising ease of use, considering real-world scenarios, and embracing innovative approaches like personalised QR codes, we can create self-service systems that truly serve their purpose.
If you’d like further information on how Mantle Services can help your organisation engage with its members via self-serve capabilities, visit our website here or contact us for further information at enquiries@mantleservices.com
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