WhatsApp as a new messaging channel
Project Summary
The current experience for customers to send messages via WhatsApp is cumbersome and disjointed. Onboarding is manual-heavily, requiring customers to navigate between three different platforms, and message status is not available after messages are sent.
After analysing the current user journey and assessing technical feasibility, I’ve identified the need to enable customers to manage templates across all channels holistically as the major enhancement to the experience.
The solution not only streamlines solution implementation (estimated to reduce the onboarding time by 50%) but also improves overall efficiency (estimated to reduce the number of internal touchpoints by 50%).
My Role
Product Designer
Team
Scrum team, Enablement, Engineering, Support
Skills
Discovery, User research, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability testing
Workshop, Facilitation, Communication, Product Thinking
The project is protected by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
Detailed project walkthrough upon request.
Problem to solve
There is an increasing interest and demand for the ability to send messages through the WhatsApp channel from potential customers.
Being an Omni-channel communication platform, we are aiming to uplift the existing Whatsapp experience and introduce it as a new messaging channel as one of our core product offerings.
“Customers are asking for WhatsApp”
“Hard to sell without Whatsapp in the APAC region”
Identify opportunity
Through the initial research (eg: talking to stakeholders, analysing existing product offerings, and competitive analysis), I illustrated the experience of current WhatsApp experience and helped the team to identify a few touchpoints to uplift.
#How might we
Allow customers to send messages through the WhatsApp channel while aligning the Omni-channel product strategy
Solution highlights
This solution allows users to add approved WhatsApp templates into their existing Whispir template library to send messages via multiple channels.
Compared to the existing product offering, it’s estimated by implementing this on-platform solution, we can:
Reduce the number of touchpoints by 50%
Remove the dependency on Sparx (another Whispir product) and Vonage (our downstream provider)
Reduced onboarding and wait time by 50%
Learnings
This project is classified as a design and experience lead project. I take pride in leading the research and identifying opportunities to enhance the overall customer experience while aligning with the product strategy.
When emphasizing the importance of involving developers in the process, it's not just simply about sharing designs and seeking feasibility advice as early as we can. It's more beneficial if as designers we could outline a few key decision points and collaborate with developers to explore the feasibility as well as potential solutions.