Gate.io Customer support centre is an important feature for users to get assistance when encountering issues. It contains a self-service FAQ portal and live chat service. The customer support pages had not undergone a design transformation in years and many pain points prompted inefficiency in solving user enquiries. In response, we set out to provide better user experience in order to have fast resolution for users and lower the business cost.
- Users' self-service rates increased by 23% in the first month of launching (April - May 2023). Users found the solutions via the self-service FAQ portal quite easily.
- High user retention rate. 91% of users logged in to use the live chat service, only 9% continued as a visitor.
- 76% of users rated the overall experience useful.
- 56% of users would recommend Gate.io to friends and family.
The current design no longer meets the latest design standards for Gate's web presence and does not help users retrieve information and resolve issues. For Gate.io users seeking solutions and assistance, there were common insights and feedback from user interviews demonstrating an overwhelming process to resolve issues, characterised by poor usability and unappealing user interfaces. Customer satisfaction surveys also indicated users are unsatisfied with the service that we can't pinpoint the underlying issue. How might we provide better user experience in order to have fast resolution for users and lower the business cost.
No longer meets the latest design standards for Gate's web presence
It follows a dated UI design system, along with inconsistent typography, colours and icons.
Information not organised in the most intuitive way
Users found it hard to retrieve helpful information through the FAQ section, resulting in low self-service rates, high drop-off rates, and higher business costs to operate the live-chat service.
Disjointed experiences
Information is siloed and doesn’t work together to give meaningful insights.
The current intercept survey doesn't provide enough information value
The survey in current state couldn't help us understand why users' enquires were not getting resolved and their pain points.
The target users of Gate.io customer support page are cryptocurrency and blockchain technology investors seeking for solutions and assistance. These users have a strong preference for instant solution, fast and real-time communication.
We kicked off the project with a comprehensive experience review of the current experience with the core team and key stakeholders. Together, we came to define the user problems and set up project goals.
1.
Restructure UX and UI
Organise information in the most intuitive way, make it more efficient and appealing.
2.
Increase Self-service rate
Prioritise and add informative resources, make it easy to retrieve information.
3.
Easy to use
Add shortcuts, auto-translation feature and optimise search ability.
We started with an extensive competitor analysis to seek inspiration from well-designed existing sites tackling the same problems. We have identified Binance and Huobi as our strongest competitors regarding website performance and reputation. Working in collaboration with 2 other designers, we ran a usability test on our website and competitor sites internally. We asked participants to complete the same tasks across competitors using the same testing scenarios to ensure accuracy.
In this case, we were able to go through the whole customer support journey with our participants. We also mapped out the high-level information architectures and addressed user pain points and opportunities from the starting, chatting and closing stages.
Info is chunky and dated in Gate.io site - Users found it hard to retrieve information through the FAQ section, and customer representatives took a longer time to response on average.
Competitor sites received higher ratings from participants- Chatbot are able to help users resolve simple questions and concern quickly, and customer representatives are able to track questions and get them resolved within a reasonable timeframe.
Gate.io does not have a chatbot implemented and a clear entrance for starting a live chat service.
Competitor sites are more engaging and provide a seamless and modern experience.
Problem: We received a lot of feedback revealing that the relevant frequently asked questions are not in the same category. Also, users found it hard to understand because of the use of jargon words.
Our Approach: We worked with Product Managers and the Customer Support Team to refine the FAQ section. We prioritised the most frequently asked questions and grouped relevant FAQs under the same category. PMs and the Language team are constantly reviewing all questions and answers to improve readability.
Outcome: Users are now able to get snippets of answers and shorten the time spent finding relevant FAQs.
Problem: The Gate.io Customer Support Center has not been undergoing a design transformation for years. We lack some common but crucial features that competitors had in place for a long time.
Our Approach: We first conducted a competitive analysis and interviews with the Customer Support Team to understand the problem's roots. Then, we worked with the Dev team to discuss technical ability of implementing AI Chatbot implementation and keyword searching.
Outcome: Chatbot implementation and key searching enhance solution-finding efficiency. We also see from the data that the self-service rate steadily increases over time.
Problem: We noticed users rarely chose to end the live chat service, even when they had no other inquiries to solve. In this case, customer representatives have nowhere to close tickets, raising business costs to hire more staff to operate the live chat service.
Our Approach: We covered the automatic conversation closure into 3 scenarios (within the first 10 minutes, between 10-15 mins and more than 15 minutes). Past conversation is kept so users and customer representatives can refer to if users return with more inquiries.
Outcome: Automatic closure of live chat service allows customer representatives to work on other tickets and lower business cost.
UX Design Lead Chloe mapped out each step of the experience of the Customer Support Center. Considering this is a big project, we carefully included all scenarios with clear annotations and labels before moving on to UI design. I proofread the entire project and checked if the logic makes sense.
We asked participants to complete several scenarios and observed their reactions and movement patterns and ability to complete their goals. Through multiple rounds of feedback and internal design consultations, we were able to cut down a big chunk of necessary steps and make key information more accessible at a higher level.
Changing the header colour to our darker brand colour for readability and highlighting our logo.
Putting FAQ Section at the prominent level to encourage users to utilise AI chatbot before using live chat service.
Introducing a card format where users can choose Live Chat Service or Submit Request.
The header title changes from "Service Center" to "Live Chat Service."
The bottom left icon changes to an End Service button.
We encourage users to leave us feedback for future improvements. Increasing the rating card's visual hierarchy would lower users' stress levels of fearing endless questions to be filled.
To reduce friction from design to development, we arranged a meeting with developers to go through final design and clarify any uncertainty. Additionally, I documented design specifications, including new visual elements, spacings, interactions, responsive breakpoints, user flows ,and various scenarios. (P.S. Big shout out to our Design System Team, we couldn't pull out the designs so quickly without their help.)
This redesign project is one of the most significant projects I worked on. It launched in mid-April 2023 after endless rounds of pre-launching design checking, and meetings with cross-functional teams to align requirements and business goals. Together with PMs, Devs and other stakeholders, we were able to pull this miracle out within a short few months.
I believe - communication, transparency, and ability to deliver are the keys.
