End user research
Understanding consumer behavior with customer service encounters @ Zendesk
Type
Role
Time
Team
Tools
Methods
UX Research Intern
UX research
10 weeks (Apr-Jun 2021)
Me, 1 Researcher
UserTesting, Miro, Confluence, Zoom
Unmoderated remote user interviews, Unmoderated remote user test, Affinity diagram, Competitive analysis, Report writing
Background
Zendesk is a B2B company that provides customer service software to other companies. Prior to my internship, the UX Research team had limited knowledge of the consumer experience of customer service. My research project aimed to understand consumer behavior in customer service in order to inform product teams that deal with end users. I worked with 4 main stakeholders and several more secondary ones to deliver an informed research report, and received positive feedback about my project and this area of study.
Impact
As a result of my consumer behavior analysis, I produced a research report that is now used as part of the onboarding process for new members joining the team to understand the company and product’s end user behavior. After my internship experience of ‘piloting’ this area of study, the topic of end user analysis is now considered as a continuous rolling study program.
Research process timeline
Context
My 4 main stakeholders were all designers on different product teams at Zendesk. Other indirect stakeholders included product managers, design managers, and other designers who wanted to learn more about the topic. To understand what my main stakeholders wanted out of this project, I individually met with them to hear their thoughts, run them through the projected research plan, and ensure that we aligned on the research questions. I received any prototypes created by the designers that they wanted me to include in the research plan and test.
🔎 Challenge
Although Zendesk’s products provide customer service software to other companies, there is currently limited research done into the consumer space of what end users expect, like, and dislike about certain methods of customer service. To explore this topic, I explored the main research questions regarding the overall customer support experience in 1 study and had 3 separate sub-studies designed to address sub-project questions specific to certain aspects of customer service available within Zendesk.
Study 1: Overall experience
Study 2: Messaging + Phone experience
Study 3: Help Center experience
Study 4: Bot experience
💡 Solutions
First, I held individual interviews with my 4 main stakeholders, explored existing research, and conducted industry competitive analysis to gain a better understanding of the problem space and existing solutions. Then, through conducting and analyzing 15 unmoderated remote user interviews on UserTesting, I gained a better understanding of the overall customer support experience. Next, through using design prototypes in unmoderated remote user testing with the previous cohort, I analyzed the 3 different subsections of Messaging + Phone, Help Center, and Bot experiences. After structuring and writing a digestible internal report for my stakeholders, I then offered recommendations, implications, and potential future areas of focus through a presentation that I gave at the end of my internship.
Due to this study’s relationship to Zendesk's products, I am limited in what I can share. Please reach out to learn more!
Personal Takeaways
As the first and only UX Research Intern in the U.S., I approached my role feeling empowered to set a strong precedent. Although my internship was only 11 short weeks, I managed to learn so much within that time frame! The biggest lessons that I learned were that piloting tests is important, research plans can be malleable, and that research itself is an iterative process. With that being said, I learned that it’s okay to ‘fail’ or deviate from the original research plan—so long as I know why, and can revise my plan accordingly.
I’d love to give a special shoutout to my manager Anna and my mentor Crystal for supporting me with this project, for trusting me to lead it, and for being the most compassionate, inspiring, and nurturing figures I could have asked for. I’d also love to thank Emma, Alexa, Pooja, and my stakeholders for working so closely with me in other aspects of my internship and for teaching me so much! Though this internship was remote, it has still shaped my path as both a researcher and a person.
Aside from this research project, I also spearheaded a few other things, such as conducting heuristic analysis to improve website content, redesigning an internal tool, organizing a Community Engagement event that I wrote a Medium article on, hosting an Ask Me Anything session with my fellow Creative interns, and creating an onboarding guide for my team. All in all, I’d love to thank Zendesk’s intern program for giving me so much space to fearlessly grow, offering me so endless support in turning my ideas into reality, and showing me so many lessons from amazing individuals who I had the privilege of working with. It was an honor to have interned at this amazing company!