Communications Tool - Walgreens
Per new legal requirements, Walgreens was required to request new permission from pharmacy customers prior to communicating via phone, text or email. Walgreens had a window of time to capture consent from existing customers. We were tasked with looking at opportunities for how and when to capture said consent. Extensive research was conducted to help define the experience.
Launch date: 2016 (phased approach)
My role: lead User Experience Architect in charge of designing experience, working very closely with the research team, business and engineering to meet government, business and development constraints.
What we learned from research…
Channel and context: channel impacted how and when the customer wanted to engage with consent. For example, in-store customers wanted brief and direct questions, while online customers were more open to deeper engagement. Interrupting a customer during a task to collect consent is a reasonable and familiar model, however, overall engagement was low. Giving the customer the option to access consent at their discretion (e.g. email link) allows them to engage on their own time — but risks losing email.
Transparency: people are sensitive to permitting phone calls. They are more skeptical on why consent is being asked for and what to expect if agreed upon. Transparency around language is key for customer to even consider accepting the consent. Each channel presented an opportunity for unique messaging. Per theme #1, engagement and trust varies between channels.
Relationship with pharmacy staff: Pharmacists are trusted advisors who patients look to for guidance. Knowing that their Pharmacist recommend or rely on consent was likely to have a big impact on the customer’s decision to accept consent.
What we created…
With the research and understanding of customer expectations, two main elements were designed.
Implementation of consent: A concise consent screen was made available at POS, post online login and over the phone, with the ability to see full legal text should customer choose to. In addition, the ability to select “maybe later” was presented. If consent was accepted or declined on any channel, user would no longer be interrupted in future visits. However, if “maybe later” was selected, consent would persist on future visits.
Updated communication preferences experience: In addition to explaining and capturing consent, it was important to give user the ability to change their mind. Communication Preferences screen within walgreens.com Your Account was redesigned to improve overall experience, and to accommodate consent preference.
High-Level Customer Journey
Pharmacy customer is interrupted post login with a one-time consent screen. Per research, online customers are willing to spend more time on interruptors, therefore, we chose not to include “maybe later” option on the online consent experience. Walgreens’ goal was to capture consent from as many customer as possible within the permitted time frame. User is redirected to their intended destination after providing (or declining) consent.
High-Level Customer Journey
As part of the consent initiative, we were asked to re-design the Communication Preferences experience on walgreens.com, as to more easily allow customers to manage pharmacy preferences at the channel-level. In turn, we created an experience that allowed customers to opt into a preference via any of the three channels, and for any of the phone numbers or email stored in their profile.
More on Consent…
During first month:
84% - customers who accepted consent via any of the three channels
13.2% - customers who declined consent via any of the three channels
2.8% - customers who opted to postpone consent via any of the three channels
85% of those who chose “maybe later” converted to “yes”
Average conversion period: 28.6 days