Global Blue: Market Success via UX and User Motivation

New Service: Mobile Customer Care

To increase the User Motivation in using this Mobile Customer Care Service, USECON accompanied Global Blue in the development and improvement of the services step by step.

Global Blue’s Mobile Customer Care is a key innovation, which provides real-time support to Globe Shoppers via their smartphones. Travellers who shop at an affiliated merchant receive transaction-triggered email and SMS notifications to guide them through their Tax Free Shopping journey, reminding them about the next required action all the way from the initial purchase through to the refund payment. Underpinning the notification service is a mobile-optimised website, providing travellers with more detailed information on the transaction status and next steps, along with value-added tools such as an option to set refund reminders and local airport guides.

Transparency as the UX project’s corner stone

The challenge for USECON in this project was to keep the Tax Free Shopping process transparent for customers. Most important was to increase User Motivation, UX and the linked acceptance of this promising service.

Customers should be able to easily see the status of their purchase at any time at any location. This leads to a positive Customer Experience, that ensures that customers are kept motivated and led seamlessly through the whole Tax Free Shopping process.

Increasing UX and User Motivation as main Mission

An extensive Expert Review was executed at the beginning of the project with the help of a clickable prototype, which helped to identify the first obstacles in usage. These insights were applied to the first UX-optimised version of the prototype, which was tested by international customers.

Measure User Motivation with Online Testing

With low user motivation, a low acceptance of the service is inevitable, as well as a low UX. To evaluate the status quo of acceptance, an online study was executed. Various versions of letters of invitation were also evaluated during this study.

Firstly, the users received different variations of the invite. Alongside the description of the new service, a link to this service was also included and the frequency of which users clicked on this link was measured. Each invitation version was measured separately.

Collecting user acceptance via UX Remote Tests

The new online service was available as a clickable prototype with no connection to the backend at the moment of the online testing. The prototype contained fictive data and values.

After clicking the access link, users landed on a welcome site of the remote test. This site informed them about the development-status of the service and about the following process of the test. To ensure that the users could use this service easily and without any problems, the test users had to fulfil various tasks with the help of the prototype.

Additionally, the users had to answer questions about how satisfied they were with the implementation of the service and about their acceptance of it. The remote test was executed in Chinese, Russian and English.

Understanding User Motivation in Context

Off to Milano, we went. More precisely to one of the Global Blue Customer Centers at one department store. According to the quantitative results of the remote testing, qualitative interviews and user tests in English, Chinese and Russian were conducted.

Alongside Usability and UX-relevant subjects, insights around the challenges with the different cultures and target groups were provided. These were successfully implemented by Global Blue and also taken into account at the commercialization and market positioning of the new service.

Working together with USECON during the MCC project showed us that it is important to engage UX experts in order to release a well perceived end user facing product which is tailored to their needs. The testing and the resulting insights provided by USECON were tremendously valuable for Global Blue and the success of the final product, “Mobile Customer Care”.

Claudia Achatschitz, Senior Project Manager, Global Blue