Multiplex

Project for the Multiplex company during my studies at the course at the Projector Institute

THE PROBLEM

As many as 21,123 calls were received by the Multiplex cinema network call-center operators in just one month. This means that one cinema receives about 75 calls per day.

In short, I can describe this case as "Maximum amount of work in minimum period of time." We had less than a month for this task.

At the beginning, the Customer suggested that traffic optimization solution can be done through the development of a chat-bot. But we were not sure if this is the right idea, and as there was not enough data to make any decisions, our group began own research.

HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE

Only 1 month to finish the project

MAKE OF THE TEAM

Our group consisted of about 10 people, but each did their own research and prototype

KEY GOAL

Help to understand and solve problems with huge amount of calls to the call center

MY ROLE

I had to conduct interviews, make a lot of reports and develop a chat-bot prototype. At the end I presented my prototype to the Customer.

The format of the prototype depended on the results of the research. At the beginning, the Customer believed that it could be a chat-bot in one of the most popular messengers (most likely in Telegram).

The company's goal, of course, is to gain as many loyal clients as possible.

My goal was to create a channel for communication "Multiplex", enabling users could to get answers to their questions. This will reduce involvement of the call-center.

I carefully analyzed the structure of the Customer's business (Fig. 3). Then we asked ourselves - what is the exact problem we face and how it could be solved (Fig. 4, 5).

PROBLEMS I HAD
TO SOLVE:

To optimize cinema staff activity and simplify their duties
Motivate people to install the app
Create a new behavioral habits among people
Motivate people to book tickets online, as most of people decide to go to the cinema spontaneously
Make sure people don't need any assistance during buying/returning tickets
Enable people to solve small problems themselves and easily

WHAT EXACTLY DID I NEED TO DO:

investigate the problem;
to conduct secondary research;
make a brief and Business model canvas;
conduct in-depth interviews;
create design people;
create prototypes for transfer to the client.

DESIGN PLAN

UNDERSTANDING THE USER

I just started talking to people and conducting interviews, getting as much useful information as possible

To explore the topic deeply, I bought tickets myself and went to the cinema with my friend. And after the show I interviewed some people inside the theater, who were waiting for the next movie session. I used some "starters" - short phrases that allowed me to start a conversation with strangers and not distract them. During my conversations I discovered what messenger people use, what kind of movies they prefer, what cinema going related problems they face, etc.

The results of the Google survey allowed me to get some statistics and identify people suitable for the next interviews.

I used the "Hook method" to interview people, which does not require any special training. I conducted 4 in-depth interviews, and a number of short surveys. Each in-depth interview lasted approximately 30-40 minutes.

I asked people how they decide to go to cinema, how they choose the specific theater, and why they prefer particular cinema session. During my interviews, I made a hypothesis that people face some problems interacting with the cinema website and that’s why they forced to visit the box office or appeal to the call center.

As a result, I prepared a comprehensive document with my hypotheses, a description of the interview process, my conclusions, and links to the interview transcriptions and audio recordings.

Target audience research

WEBSITE ARCHITECTURE

In the group we analyzed the Multiplex website using the “Card sorting” method. We invited potential users to conduct this study

As I’ve assumed previously that most probably the website is not good enough. For instance, some visitors failed to understand quickly where the basic information, such as show time schedule, is located. We analyzed the Multiplex site in the group. To do this, we had to explore its information structure, which in fact seemed quite complex (Fig. 11, 12). We printed out small pieces of paper named as sections of the site and invited a potential user to arrange them in clear and logical hierarchy. This method is called “Card sorting” (photos 13, 14, 15).

CARDSORTING RESULTS

After “card sorting”, we made the following conclusions:

The show time schedule should be on the main page and be well visible.
It would be good to change the names of website sections with more understandable ones.
Information related to tickets buying/returning process, as well as age restrictions etc., should be combined in one comprehensive section.
We found reasonable to remove the question "Will the film be shown in my city?" from the Question/Answer section.
The "Help" section should include the general visiting rules of the cinema and common questions.

PROTOTYPE

After the conducted research, it became clear that chat-bot could be quite helpful to resolve Multiplex cinema problems

During my interviews people confirmed that Telegram messenger is one of their favorite. So, this messenger seemed to be most suitable for the target audience.

With the created Telegram chat-bot people can buy and return tickets, as well as get answers to the most common questions.

I managed to create bot prototype in Figma, just for testing purpose. After that I tried to develop a real bot in Telegram, using Python coding. To do this, I had to learn the Python programming language at a basic level.

Telelgram bot

Prototype in Figma

USER TESTING SESSIONS

My efforts were resulted in operational prototype that was highly appreciated by users during the testing.

I created a Test Plan - three scripts and a prototype bot in Figma. A test plan is a document describing the future testing process and usage scenarios. The metrics (like time) shows how successful the test was. Also in the test plan it is necessary to draw the conclusions confirming or refuting hypotheses and why.

At the end of the test, users rated scenarios from 1 to 7 (where “1” means it was very complicated and “7” - easy to do). My prototype was tested by three people and I received two grades of "6" and one "7". Of course, the Figma made prototype cannot perfectly provide the functionality of a real bot in Telegram. For example, it was very difficult to run the "Choose a place" script. But as overall result, my prototype proved to be viable.

After testing the prototype, it was necessary to process the obtained data. You can measure the level of user satisfaction with the completed scenarios (Satisfaction level), using the special formula. For instance, for obtained grades 6, 6 and 7, the “Satisfaction level” would be approximately 71.57%.

Testing process

LESSONS LEARNED

To achieve professional growth, you must be always open to new knowledge. This time, for example, doing my research I had to learn basics of Python programming language

I decided to try developing the Telegram chat-bot with Python programming language. Currently my bot is already deployed in the messenger, but I'm still working on its functionality. Anyway, it was very interesting to understand Telegram's features in chat-bot creation.