How collaborative design practices lead to better solutions
User experience is one of the critical pillars of modern technology. Any software, platform, application, product or service needs to be designed with the end user clearly in mind. If a platform cannot seamlessly integrate into the everyday lives of its intended audience, it is destined to fail.
There's a lot to account for in that regard, from a platform's interface and navigation to its menu of features - every component must work toward creating the best user experience possible. When it comes to developing applications for telecommunications companies, the best source of information is the end user. Consistent feedback and customer input should be a hallmark of any telecom platform, which is why IDI Billing Solutions fully embraces collaborative design. Doing so leads to better products and services, as well as more satisfied customers.
Here's how we do it:
Let user input drive design
No one creates new solutions or products in a vacuum. Every time a company rolls out a new service, it's geared toward a specific audience. But if it that audience isn't included in the development process in some capacity, there's no guarantee that solution will actually meet their needs and fulfill their expectations.
One of the many changes that agile methodologies made to software development was to give customer input a more central role in the production cycle. By building user feedback directly into the development process as a routine occurrence, project teams are able to fine-tune their products to address problems, include helpful features and generally improve the overall user experience.
User feedback can help shine a light on performance issues, missing features and other customer concerns that might otherwise slip through the cracks. With this information in hand, developers can update their products accordingly to better meet user needs. Even seemingly trivial matters could have a dramatic effect on user experience, so it's important that project teams account for as much as possible.
IDI's approach to collaborative design
At IDI, we are constantly gathering customer input to improve our products and services, adding new features and capabilities to address feedback and make our clients' lives easier.
Gathering user feedback should always be done with a collaborative spirit. Customers want to know that their voices are being heard and that we are listening to their pain points, concerns and ideas to expand our breadth of services. That's why we hold our annual User Forum to have more open conversations with our customers and their experiences using our telecom billing solutions. It's an incredible opportunity to discuss ways we can improve our products and address any issues users are encountering.
Of course, there's no reason why those kinds of conversations should only happen once a year. The launch of our suggestion board empowers IDI customers to consistently share ideas and bring any service gaps to light.
Give customers the help they need
Not all customers are looking for that kind of interaction, especially when it comes to troubleshooting. Having support staff in place to answer questions and guide users through the troubleshooting process is always ideal, but it's good to give more proactive customers tools to identify problems and address them on their own.
Self-service tools are invaluable assets in these circumstances, enabling users to work through issues with their own internal teams. Our IDI Support site was designed with those scenarios in mind, providing an assortment of tools, information, documents and other resources to help customers find the answers they're looking for.
For instance, if a user would like to learn more about the tax laws for a new market their telecom company is expanding into, that information is readily available.
Customers can even use the portal to submit service requests and communicate with IDI team members. Best of all, IDI Support is available 24/7 to help answer any questions users might have to improve their overall customer experience.
At the end of the day, our products and services are only as good as their ability to address pain points and make our customers' lives easier. Our collaborative design approach ensures that we continually strive to create the very best billing automation and workflow solutions available.
