Overview

During my time working at a product design studio, one of the projects I worked on was for the AA. They needed help to define their product vision and improve digital experiences for existing AA members, B2B partners, and internal stakeholders.

Problem

Established in 1905, the AA is a motoring institution and the UK's number one breakdown service provider.

Facing a future where people drive less, car ownership is falling, and vehicles are increasingly reliable, their challenge was to imagine a future beyond breakdowns. The AA felt they needed a future proof solution to their problems.

Transforming a legacy organisation and moving beyond breakdowns meant re-imagining the entire digital experience from end-to-end. To do this, we needed to immerse ourselves within the AA, partnering with teams across the business.

Exploration

Once I had defined the problem the next step was to bring these new customer journeys to life in simple, step-by-step, visual explainers, before turning them into clickable prototypes that could be used to gain investment from OEM partners. I was able to quickly take multiple ideas through the feasibility stage, shortening the AA's usual timescales from months to weeks.

The prototypes showcased the AA's potential to become an integral part of any motorist's life, from helping them to know more about their vehicle and when it needs a service, to finding and paying for fuel and parking, whilst also helping to reduce call centre overheads and speed up fleet response times.

Solution

Through several stages of iteration and user testing, we were able to pin point an effective solution.

‘Car home’ proved to be the winning concept, a fresh take on the existing mobile app, this time around was designed to help support every step of a users journey from buying a car to MOT’s, servicing, insurance & breakdowns. This new proposition allowed the app to act as more of a companion than a tool. Tackling some of the biggest pain points and customer frictions allowed us to add additional value all while supporting the business goals.

The Car Home proposition has become the foundation of the AA's ongoing strategy to support customers throughout their entire driving life cycle. Alongside these initiatives, an icebox of features for development will help to ensure the AA can develop a roadmap to remain relevant beyond breakdowns.

Impact

Over a 2 month period we were able to A/B test the newly designed app to half of all AA users. Incredibly the results saw a 42% decrease in phone calls to customer service staff reporting a breakdown.

As well as Car Home, our work with the AA included reimagining and redesigning key UI flows, helping the team to win the 2018 UXUK award for 'Report a Breakdown' in the category of 'Best Effect on Business Goals'.