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Summer '24
Verizon
Worked as an intern for the UX Design team and developed solutions to decrease fallout in the home internet space
Background
During my 12-week internship at Verizon, I worked with the Digital Unity team, which specializes in organizing design strategy and scaffolding . Our team was focused on refining information architecture.
What did I do?
The bulk of this internship involved working on an open-ended, exploratory project with other interns, where we focused on creating strategies to boost Verizon's market share in the home internet sector.
I also assisted with a significant brand update that Verizon underwent during my internship by conducting Visual Quality Assurance for the My Verizon App.
Note: While I participated in a range of projects across the team, I am only able to share work related to publicly announced designs due to confidentiality agreements.
Projects & Tasks
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Collaborated with three other interns to explore digital strategies for simplifying customer interactions and expanding Verizon's market share in the home internet sector
Other projects I worked on but cannot show at this time include:
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Performed thorough testing of the My Verizon App to discover bugs and documented 11 defects
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Designed internal Verizon websites for different teams, ensuring adherence to the updated branding standards
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Conducted spot tests of various Figma library components, making necessary updates to align with the new branding guidelines
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Updated documentation for the new branding update, ensuring that all designers had access to consistent and accurate information
Verizon Home Internet Project
What did we do?
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Discovered how Verizon could best utilize digital methods to simplify customer interactions
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Designed ways to reduce prospect and customer fallout
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Created an implementation strategy to increase Home Internet market share
What problem
did we solve?
We found several issues with the current process of purchasing home internet
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Qualification barrier
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Entering an address to view what plans you qualify for can be perceived as the start of a long and potentially frustrating process
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Browsing mentality
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Users leave the website and find other deals that are cheaper and worse quality to be more attractive because they are looking for the most cost-efficient deal
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My Contributions
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Performed a thorough heuristic evaluation of the current flow of buying home internet through Verizon
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Conducted a competitive analysis of Verizon's competition
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Designed detailed wireframes and prototypes
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Conducted research to determine the business impact of solutions and created tree lifts
Where do customers currently fall out?
To understand how to reduce fallout, we had to understand where the users are currently falling out. Below, you can see what the current numbers are for each step in the process of purchasing home internet.
Visit
10.7M
LQA
1.7M
LQS
700K
Cart
220K
Order
74K
-84.4%
-58.4%
-68.9%
-66.9%
The figure above shows the number of users at each step for purchasing internet. Data from the Total Wireless (Fios + FWA) from June 24
Different Directions
LQA stands for Loop Qualification and is where the user attempts to see what home internet they qualify for. LQS stands for Loop Qualification Success and is where the user has a home internet that they qualify for.
We focused on areas that we are able to change. The transition from LQA to LQS is determined by the physical infrastructure of Verizon’s home internet. While infrastructure can be expanded with more connections, this limitation cannot be addressed or changed through the digital experience.
There are only 3 areas that we could improve upon
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Visit -> LQA
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User puts in their home address to see what they qualify for
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LQS -> Cart
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User adds services to their cart
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Cart -> Order
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User completes to purchase
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We conducted a heuristic evaluation to pinpoint where the major pain points were, identifying areas where our solutions could have the most significant impact. This process involved analyzing user interactions and determining where users faced the greatest difficulties.
As a result, we decided to concentrate our efforts on the steps involving visits to LQA and LQS in the cart process.
These specific steps were identified as having the highest number of issues, based on user interaction data, usability testing, and feedback, which revealed frequent drop-offs, confusion, and task completion failures at these points. The detailed challenges and solutions we developed for these steps are outlined below.
Solution 1 - Auto Qualification
This solution aims to reduce the fallout seen below. This is where the user puts in their home address to see what plans they qualify for.
Visit
10.7M
LQA
1.7M
-84.4%
Why is there fallout?
As you can see, nearly 85% of people are falling out at this stage, with only 15% of people even checking to see what home internet they qualify for.
We believe this fallout occurs because the process of entering a home address is inconvenient and has too many steps.
Current Flow
The following shows the entire process currently needed for a user to see what home internet they qualify for.
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For the flow, you can click
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"Use my location"
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"Allow"
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"Get Started"
This is already 3 steps. Or, you can manually type in your address which is time-consuming and tedious.
We know from the principle of "The Law of Least Effort" that fewer steps for the user is best. Abiding by this principle could help us get back many of the users currently falling out.
What is the
user's frustration?
Imagine for a moment that you just finished a long day of work in a new location, and you look on Google for the nearest Chipotle near you.
Before you can even see the different options, Google is going to have a pop-up, asking for your location. Why is this?
If you decline this pop-up, you’ll see Chipotle locations that are nowhere near you and that you cannot choose. Google doesn't want the user to be wasting their time.
We designed our solution on the same principle: the user should not be browsing options they are unable to purchase.
%20(1)%20(1)%20(2)%20(1).png)
What is our solution?
We proposed a similar “see results closer to you” pop-up that Google Maps has. This would allow Verizon to automatically qualify users and prevent them from browsing Home Internet options that are unavailable to them.
This removes steps in the process to view what a user qualifies for, which should decrease the amount of fallout.
This pop-up would appear right when you open the page. This would encourage users to enter the LQA process right away and allow them to browse options that are available to them.
Potential problems and their solutions
Could this lead to more fallout?
We had to account for users who may be frustrated by this process, since now users would have to either allow or block this popup before seeing anything else. Additionally the incorrect address will be entered if the user allows the user of their location when
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they are not browsing while physically at their home address
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they are using a VPN
We don’t anticipate these being an issue because the average user would know to block their location in these two situations. Had time not been a constraint, we would’ve conducted a real-time marketing test to verify this belief.
What would the buisness impact be?
This solution reduces the fallout between users visiting the website and putting in their home address to view what plans they qualify for.
We talked with Verizon's Data Predication department to discuss what the impact of this solution would be. This solution is considered a “copy change”, which is when a minor difference is added. The standard conversion rate for this is a 0.95% lift.
Originally the fallout was 84.4%. The 0.95% lift would decrease this to 83.45% and increase the number of people entering their home address from 1.7 million people to 1.8 million people!
Estimated Opportunity
With this solution, there would be an increase of ~4.4K orders a month, meaning there would be an increase of $3.6M in revenue a month.
Visit
10.7M
LQA
1.8M
+5.62%
Solution 2 - Competitive Marketing
This solution aims to reduce the fallout seen below. This is where the user adds a plan to their cart.
LQS
700K
Cart
220K
-68.9%
Why is there fallout?
Browsing Mentality is the attitude of exploring online products or services without a firm intent to buy right away.
We talked to Verizon's User Experience Research department, and they found that 94% of customers research competition and 54% of customers go to 4+ websites before buying a product
Competitive Marketing
Our solution was to provide a comparison of eligible and non-eligible internet products from competitors.
From the UX Research department, we know that roughly 54% of users would be less inclined to no longer shop elsewhere if Verizon has competitive eligibility within the sales flow.
%20(1)%20(1)%20(2)%20(3).png)
Our solution would simply tell the user that they do not qualify for other home internet options. This will encourage the user to stay on the website, knowing that other options will not have what they are looking for.
Where do we get the data?
The FCC is a database that shows updated information on the infrastructure of Fiber internet. There is not an analogous data source for other internet options which is why this solution only applies to the fiber internet market.
Potential problems and their solutions
Accurate Data
Since the data is from an external source that is updated every 6 months, there must be a disclaimer that says that says it is only accurate up to the time it has been updated.
What if there are other competitors?
Verizon is minimally contested in the areas where they provide Fiber, which is another reason why this solution is primarily focused on fiber-specific plans.
If time had not been a constraint, we would have focused on creating designs for other internet options. Our initial thoughts would be to show the price as well as the speed for different options since Verizon will always be the best with speed.
What would the buisness impact be?
This solution reduces the fallout between users viewing the plans they qualify for and adding them to cart.
We talked with Verizon's Data Predication Department to discuss what the impact of this solution would be. They knew from their knowledge and experience that this solution would have a 0.5% lift in LQS to Cart rate.
Originally the fallout was 68.9%. The 0.5% lift would decrease this to 68.4% and increase the number of people who added a plan to their cart from 129K people to 220K!
Estimated Opportunity
With this solution, there would be an increase of ~1800 add-to carts a month, meaning there would be an increase of $740K in revenue a month.
LQS
360K
Cart
129K
+1.4%
Overall Business Impact
How will these 2 solutions increase market share?
Below is the anticipated business impact of both the solutions presented. Tree tests were done to achieve the projected numbers by consulting with Verizon's data prediction team.
The percentages shown are the increase of users hitting the next stage compared to the current process.
Visit
LQA
+.95%
LQS
Cart
+.5%
Order
Current
74K
Improved
81K
We will see an increase of $6.2M & ~7.6K orders a month if these simple changes are implemented
Our solutions were developed through a detailed heuristic evaluation and analysis of user pain points in Verizon's home internet qualification and purchasing process. Initially, the design deviated from core principles such as user control and feedback, leading to a fragmented experience. For example, users faced confusion during the address qualification (LQA) due to a lack of clear progress indicators, which contributed to frustration and high drop-off rates. We specifically addressed these issues by simplifying the address entry process and clarifying the transitions between qualification and cart addition.
Our findings highlighted the critical need to adhere to design principles and best practices like minimizing user effort and maintaining consistency. We implemented targeted changes, including clearer navigation, improved feedback mechanisms, and a more intuitive qualification interface. These refinements reduced cognitive load and improved user satisfaction, ultimately lowering the drop-off rate and enhancing conversion rates. This project underscored the importance of applying proven design practices to prevent costly errors and improve overall user experience and business performance.
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