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Project Overview

The recently released Telstra 24x7™ applications deliver a range of mobile engagement options to customers. The Telstra 24x7™ mobile apps are available on the iPhone, iPad, Android and Facebook, and provide further flexibility for customers to manage their products and services on the move.

The Telstra 24x7™ mobile apps range provide a great set of features including usage monitoring, billing information, pre-paid recharge, a store locator and facilitation of social media support. For added convenience, customers can interact with their Telstra services using their My Account login or via the Telstra SIM card in their device.

Organisation

Telstra

Team

Telstra Digital, Telstra Digital Engineering, our delivery partners and the 1,500 loyal customers who participated in the Telstra 24x7™ apps beta program.

Project Brief

The need to create an engaging mobile experience for Telstra customers to manage their personal Telstra accounts and services was identified by the Telstra Digital team. Telstra wanted a single access point that would allow users to manage their Mobile and BigPond® Internet services. A proof of concept was developed to demonstrate the expertise of the team and the ability for mobile apps to access customer information via a secure API layer.

Once the feasibility of the project had been proven, a program view was established that has resulted in a steady flow of native apps being delivered to the market. The established project teams worked closely to design and develop the Telstra 24x7™ mobile apps which provide customers with an innovative and convenient way of managing their accounts.

A key aspect of the program was the user engagement, which resulted in over 1,500 Telstra customers involved in trialing and testing the apps, to ensure that the first release of our apps was designed with our customers – for our customers.
Current ratings for the Telstra 24x7™ apps at 6th August 2012:

Telstra 24x7™ for iPhone – 4.5 star average rating from 90 reviews
Telstra 24x7™ for iPad – 4.0 star average rating from 369 reviews
Telstra 24x7™ for Android – 4.4 star average rating from 186 reviews

Project Innovation / Need

The Telstra 24x7™ apps are innovative for Telstra as they are the first mobile offering that brings together services for post paid and pre-paid services – from usage, to recharge, to bills.

Innovative features of the Telstra 24x7™ apps include:

- View your current and past bill summaries, so you can keep an eye on your monthly spend with information on how to pay your bills.
- Keep tabs on the estimated usage of your mobile plans or selected BigPond® broadband plans.
- Recharge pre-paid services via stored credit card
- Switch to an email bill or change your email bill delivery address.
- Rename services so users can more easily distinguish between services
- Locate your nearest Telstra Store
- Contact Telstra online 24×7 to get help or ask a question through Live Chat, Twitter (deep integration on iPad), Facebook and the customer forum CrowdSupport
- For Telstra Pre-Paid customers they can check their balance, recharge their service and purchase Telstra Plus Packs
- Inline with Telstra’s new brand, users can also change the colour of their iPhone and Android apps

As proof of the need for the apps, they have been in the top five free apps within Utilities on iPad and iPhone since launch. The Android app is currently the number one free app in Tools on Google Play.

User Experience

User experience was a key focus of the project when creating the Telstra 24x7™ apps. Customers played a central role at every stage of the project:

- In the initial stages of the project user interviews identified key areas that the application should focus on e.g. data usage
- User testing was performed on early prototypes giving valuable insight into areas for improvement
- A trial was undertaken with 1,500 Telstra users for four months prior to the launch of the apps, which unearthed the importance of additional features such as being able to rename a service for those users with multiple services

The team focused on making a robust application incorporating caching and less intrusive error messaging to ensure the experience was a fluid as possible.

Opening the app for the first time, users have the choice of logging in with My Account login, or (other than for Facebook) utilising the integrated MSISDN authentication - this means the app is able to verify the device’s service using the SIM card in the device. Initial user testing revealed the importance of this feature to our customers.

Users are able to perform a variety of tasks within the app, although users identified by SIM can only view limited usage information for the device they are on. Users who log in with My Account can also view their bills, sign up for paperless billing, locate Telstra stores on a map and tweet Telstra directly from the iPad app.

Project Marketing

The Telstra 24x7™ apps change the way our customers connect with Telstra by empowering them to take control of their accounts and services on the move day and night. In addition, we offer them 24-hour online support. This is a positive and innovative message to be communicating to our customers.

We’ve developed a series of marketing initiatives positioned around ‘Help is at Hand 24x7’ because that’s exactly what the apps deliver. We’ve run a series of marketing activities from press, to outdoor, to SMS and eDM’s to support the apps launch.

We’ve also utilised our social media platforms to great success. These include our Telstra 24x7™ Facebook page, 24x7 Twitter account, Google+ account, Telstra Exchange blog and our CrowdSupport® platform. It’s an exciting time at Telstra, and we look forward to continuing to get the message out there that the customer comes first.