Reducing Customer Case Creation through User-Centric Design

This is a good example of having to balance customers needs and business goals.

Understanding the Problem

The business aimed to significantly reduce customer support costs by decreasing the number of tickets created by users, as each ticket required human intervention, incurring expenses, and we had over 150 options for customer tickets.

So first, I need to understand what my stakeholders believed were ticket flows we could just get rid of. How did we balance this task without upsetting customers already looking for help?

I started the project by bringing the stakeholders, the customer support team, and my team together to evaluate what we had and what we wanted. I facilitated the group using some standard design thinking methods to get to some actionable outcomes.

Redesigning the Categorization Structure

With over 150 options with vague descriptions, it was clear why so many tickets were routed wrong and why it took human interaction to solve them.

Using the object method, I broke down the main objects that make up the customer’s relationship with PB. I took these new categories and reorganized the flows.

The current categorization of cases: Financial Support, Account Support, and Technical Support did not align with our customers’ mental models. We proposed a more object-focused model:

  • Financials
  • Contracts and Agreements
  • General Account Management
  • Postage
  • Product Support
  • Supplies

Clean Up of Case Coding Selections

By basing the system on tangible objects, I could remove more than 50% of the account-based ticket options without removing any case flows.

I was eliminating redundant and poorly worded categorizations. This reorganization with better language and clearer selections was validated as the right approach with user testing.

To validate this new structure, we conducted 30 user tests over three rounds. By the third round, 100% of users were able to correctly categorize scenarios, confirming that the new structure matched our customers’ mental models.

56

Reduced user selections in Account Support

26

Reduced user selections in Financial Support

Reframing the Customer Experience

The answer was to flip the script.

Instead of a section of our site called Create a Case, which implies that you are coming here to create a case where someone will get back to you with the answer.

We renamed it the Help Center. We used the new categorization of the ticket flows and rewrote them into FAQs. We set out to change the mindset from giving me the answer to helping me find the answer.

We did a few housekeeping UI things, like increasing the parent categories from 3 to 5 and decreasing the number of selections a user must make from 3 to 1.

Before, we tried to pop up support articles to interrupt customers when creating the case. Now, prioritizing the support article to answer the FAQ made it more comfortable and helpful. We focused the user to self-serve and feel like they were getting to a solution faster than ever before.

Customers still need to create cases; only some things can be solved with articles. So, where needed, case flows still exist as a last resort.

Implementing Automation for Common Issues

To further reduce cases, the new flow allows for other options to be the answer, not just a ticket.

Now, if a customer clicks on How do I change my address? We were able to send them directly to the change address flow. I form that allowed them to do just that. No human needed and the fixed the problem themselves.

We couldn’t offer such solutions when it wasn’t a question, and their expectations were the ticket. We plan to implement this redirect answer to change the address, company name, and ownership, with many more to be added in the future.

Conclusion

The steps we took laid a strong foundation for reducing the need for customer case creation. Our approach was rooted in understanding and aligning with our users’ mental models, reframing the customer experience, and leveraging automation. We are currently monitoring the impact of these changes and will continue refining our solutions based on incoming data.

This case study demonstrates the power of user-centered design in solving complex business problems and highlights the methodologies and insights that drive successful UX projects.