Byte In-App Support Case Status
Project
Empowering Users with an In-App Feedback Loop
Overview
Byte seeks to democratize access to affordable clear aligner treatment with a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) model.
Treatment averages a few months, and during this time, users are at-home--but not alone. The My Byte mobile app serves as a companion for treatment, allowing users to keep track of their treatment and initiate support requests by filling out a form.
Once this form is filled out, users sometimes feel left in the dark. What's next? The lack of feedback breeds uncertainty and anxiety as they await a response. Worse, they sometimes miss our email response entirely, delaying a resolution. They may then be required to resubmit an entirely new case--because too much time elapsed renders a tele-dentistry case clinically invalid.
This has been an exceedingly frustrating low point for users seeking help with their treatment.
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Exploring user needs
I’m proud to have established Byte’s Continuous Discovery process—a lightweight system that simplifies recruiting, interviewing, and sharing insights organization-wide. I've ignited interest in user research across teams, expanding the practice beyond product, while lowering the barrier for engaging with the discovery process.
Through weekly interviews, my Product Designer and I learned about what happens when users stray off the happy path in their quest for support.
- 🤷 Users aren't sure if we received their request, so they submit another
- 📨 Emails from our team sometimes end up lost in spam
From shadowing our Byte Support Team and reviewing analytics data on case resolution, we learned that
- ⏳ Roughly 21% of our cases are awaiting a response from users, usually for clinical-related inquiries
How might we bridge the gap between our users and Support team to reinforce the process of requesting for support?
Making informed decisions
With an 85% adoption rate, it made sense to leverage the MyByte app to provide a feedback loop on users' support case status:
👉 Display a real-time status card on their overall support cases
Working with stakeholders, we determined:
- What to display
- When to display
- For what types of cases
Working with legal, we received guidance on:
- Appropriate copywriting
Working with engineers, we determined:
- What user/case data is needed
- The logic for each card state
- Test cases
Working with lifecycle marketing, we:
- Extended the feedback loop to push notifications, email, and SMS
Feature prioritization
Working with stakeholders, we determined:
- What to display
- When to display
- For what types of cases
Working with legal, we received guidance on:
- Appropriate copywriting
Working with engineers, we determined:
- What user/case data is needed
- The logic for each card state
- Test cases
Working with lifecycle marketing, we:
- Extended the feedback loop to push notifications, email, and SMS
Product process
Rocket launched
We launched a card that'll display on the app's Home screen and Support screen when a user has at least 1 in-progress or response-needed case. If not, the Support screen will let them know that all is well.
To address the lack of response to important clinical responses, we included an actionable response-needed card that opens their device's default mail app.
So far, there's been a promisingly high level of engagement with that CTA at 67%, and within the first week, we saw an increase of 7% to our response-needed cases.
Next steps
The long term solution is to move support communications into the app itself. In the interim though, this in-app Support Case Status will improve trust in our users of our Support team.
As this was launched two weeks from this writing, I will be monitoring product analytics to see how users interact with it, and asking evaluative questions during our weekly user interviews.
