About

Challenge:
Reduce customer waiting time for support and reduce calls to the Support Team

Client:
Vodafone Australia

My Role:
Lead Product Designer

Key Outcomes

First, I mapped the top customer support issues

My initial step was interviewing Customer Care to understand their needs and the key customer enquiries TOBi would need to handle. This gave us the top enquiry subjects, which shaped the initial conversation prompts, ending scenarios, and early copywriting direction.

To complement this, I researched how people talk about chatbot experiences more broadly, drawing on usability write-ups and the kind of frustrations customers post in forums and reviews when chatbots get it wrong. A few recurring themes stood out

Then I mapped the market to identify elements and journeys

I reviewed existing chat experiences across the market—and in other industries—to understand established patterns before defining our own direction.

Experience design principles to guide us

I synthesised all of the above into four guiding principles for every UX and UI decision from here on.

The out-of-the-box platform was not fully customisable

I built basic wireframes of the happy path and a few conversation variants. These became the visual starting point for conversations with the third-party provider, so we could find out fast what their platform could and couldn’t do.

I then went through every UI element and layout — spacing, colour, type — to map exactly what I could change.

Working with the 3rd Party was iterative and involved constant check-ins as the UX/UI became more defined.

Doing this upfront saved time and rework.

We needed to balance global brand UX with budget

Each country could evolve Vodafone’s Global Design, but the long-term goal was one design that worked everywhere. Matching Global as closely as possible was a real requirement, not a nice-to-have.

I mapped Global’s existing patterns against our journeys to see what we could keep, then prepared specific questions for the UK team.

Designing the key flows and elements

Drawing on research into chatbot patterns, customer needs, platform limitations and global UX directions, and led by the design principles I’d defined, I evolved the wireframes of key flows and journeys into high-fidelity designs — starting with the core conversational elements and interactions, styled against the app’s style guide and common chat UI conventions.

Testing revealed an unseen unhappy path

In Phase 1, the chat button only lived on the home screen. If TOBi sent someone to another page and they had more questions, they had to navigate all the way back to ask.

Addressing native OS experiences not supported by the platform

TOBi’s replies could land a day later, so notifications mattered. Normally, apps prompt for notifications with a native OS pop-up. Our platform didn’t support that — users had to be sent to Settings manually instead.

I mapped the iOS and Android journeys separately to check for drop-off. iOS users had to manually return to the Vodafone app afterwards — the riskiest step in the flow.

Despite the MVP’s limited scope, TOBi resolved 39% of customer enquiries in its first weeks live, taking real load off the Customer Care team from day one.