I worked with Telstra for an extended period of time to bolster their Customer Experience team and translate very complex technical requirements into simple experiences. I had the pleasure of working on a variety of projects for both Telstra Business and Telstra Enterprise and Government, all with the focus on providing an excellent customer experience.
The activities performed on each project varied greatly, but often included at least one element of primary research whether it be user interviews, contextual inquiry or user workshops to gather information. Having a holistic understanding of customers interactions with Telstra regardless of channel was a very important focus for us and I was able to play a major role in pulling together maps of the customer’s journey and align them with blueprints of Telstra service offerings to identify areas that delight and also areas that were in need of improvement.
Throughout all of my time at Telstra there was always an element of stakeholder management and helping to spread the understanding of the importance of human-centred design throughout the organisation. I was working at Telstra during a very positive switch towards digital products and customer-centric design and it was a joy to be a part of the process.
Key activities performed:
- Customer Journey Mapping
- CX Strategy
- Competitor review
- Stakeholder management
- Usability testing
- Accessibility testing
- Customer and stakeholder workshops
Contextual inquiries and user interviews were able to give us real insight into what people were really experiencing (including any workarounds they had created internally to get on with things). This information was vital when we were defining processes and shaping the way Telstra’s offerings were delivered.
I was also responsible for numerous projects that required usability and accessibility testing using Telstra’s usability lab on George street in Sydney. Having access to these facilities meant that testing was able to be completed without bias and stakeholders were able to view from the observation room as the testing was taking place.
As with any project that involves large amounts of primary research, articulating the findings was a huge part of the journey. I was lucky enough to create a ‘war room’ for many of the projects I worked on which allowed the physical real-estate to use copious amounts of post-it notes on the wall for a spacial affinity diagram analysis. This also helped with stakeholder management because they were able to join us in the ‘war room’ at any time and really immerse themselves in the research that was taking place, giving them a new understanding of exactly what it felt like to be a Telstra customer.
Some projects were early in on the lifecycle and centred around research and analysis, while others were much further down the line and included detailed wireframing and prototype development to then be tested in the usability lab.
In these projects we created prototypes in Axure and made them as functional as possible to give as close of an approximation of the real experience as possible. After these prototypes had survived multiple rounds of testing, it was time to create detailed functional specifications that could then be given to developers to be implemented.
It was quite common for these teams to ask us to come back in during the development lifecycle for another round of testing as they created the product and it was an amazing experience to see many of my projects come to life and be released to the public.