Mio Technology website - contact strategy
Mio - a new contact strategy - Experience Matters
On the old website most telephone numbers were hidden or hard to find, as a way to lower telephone support calls. This strategy didn't work well, as the support telephone numbers just circulated on other websites, people started calling non related Mio phone numbers for support and generally it lead to more frustrations for people who already had troubles with their devices.
Our new strategy was to guide the visitor in a positive way to self-service and automated tools instead of expensive phone support. We made the path to phone support easy and mentioned clearly that support was not an option on other corporate phone numbers.
Project outline
More visibility for contact options.
The contact us link was put back on the top of each page together with multiple contact teasers on the website that all lead to the general contact page.
All corporate contact options were transformed into proper contact cards with all contact details, with a clear message that support was not an option on those phone numbers.
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The contact us page - centerpoint of the strategy
With many links pointing to this page we need to guide them to the proper channels, and make clear it's cheaper or better to use the automated tools or to self-service for the most basic support questions.
6 main contact divisions
We grouped all the contact options & tools together into 6 main categories:
- 3 options targeted to our end users, pronounced with an icon:support, e-shop & mio club.
- sales
- press
- other questions (goes to our general reception)
We also communicated expectations with the guaranteed response times. The Product & E-shop support had a much larger team behind them.
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Using time & cost as motivation
When you click on a category you can refine your contact request. This is a very modular system where we can easily add or remove options and link them to new tools, forms or pages.
All the sales, press & others options lead to specific custom forms. Some e-shop & Mio Club options lead to order tracking or FAQ pages.
The product support gets the most requests, and here we try to guide the visitor by (real) times and price.
- The FAQs & repair tracking are free and you get an immediate answer.
- Email support is free, and we guarantee answers within 1-24 hours.
- Phone support is the most expensive, and will cost you on average 20 to 60 minutes.
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A modular & userfriendly form system
I built a modular form system, with the templating code & usability guidelines for every possible input field. I made the requested forms myself, but also provided the guidelines on how Mio could build their own forms with this system. The JavaScript validation code is created by the server code, so they always run in sync with the same regex.
3 form page elements
Every form page has 3 main blocks:
- We first state clearly for what you should use this form
- We communicate which team you will contact, and how much time they need to answer you.
- The modular form with the required and optional information.
With each form field we help the visitor fill it in with help text, or when there are privacy concerns, we state why we need this information.
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Helping visitors fill in correct information
The forms have server and javascript validation, and both work with the same rules.
After filling in a field it gets validated immediately. When the input is invalid we state exactly what is wrong, and help to correct the mistake with information and examples. Each field has multiple validation & help rules.
Confirmation with clear expectations
If the form is submitted successfully we clearly state so. We repeat which team will answer their message and how long it will take.
Each form had an optional button at the end, to guide the visitor to another page or section.
