Device Mailback Program

Verizon offers recycling of Stream TV and other streaming devices (Roku, Firestick, etc.) through their retail stores. Customers usually take their devices to a corporate store for recycling, and the retail store sends the device to the warehouse, where it gets recycled by the vendor. 

A new mandate from Washington DC required Verizon to offer an additional recycling option: Customers should be able to mail in their streaming devices of any brand. They can get the shipping label from Verizon and then send in their devices.

To achieve compliance with this regulation, I teamed up with the product designer, product owner, legal and other leadership to create a strategy to modify the language across all points of sale to 

• let existing DC customers know that our recycling process has been updated

• allow customers to download a shipping label with clear instructions

The digital channel to create a shipping label was something we had to build from scratch. We created the messaging for both the Verizon website as well as the My Verizon mobile app.

First steps: research and context

The original content written by my predecessor was simple and got the point across.

However, there were a few changes to the team's priorities and I had to pivot.

My biggest beef with the original was mainly surrounding the messaging for both non-DC and DC residents presented together in one statement. I wanted to make the content more actionable, so some of the questions I asked were:

• Can DC customers still go into a store location and drop in their devices for recycling?

• Can customers only recycle at a corporate store (vs. regular retail stores)? How can we make it easier for them to identify the right store? 

• How do they know that their product is not being traded in and that this is only for recycling? How can we give them the opportunity to learn more about the recycling program and the trade-in program?

First drafts

Based on the leadership's answers to these questions, I was able to expand and refine the content one step further and do a few maneuvers to get legal approval.

Based on the answers to the above questions (and after getting consensus with leadership and legal), the product designer and I got to work on the happy path for DC residents and messages for non-DC residents.

The first step: The user clicks on the Download shipping label button and is directed to enter their address. 

For DC residents

If the user's address is a DC address (or even a Maryland address that's within coverage), they get a success message that their shipping label is ready for download, along with an acknowledgement that they're aware that they will not receive trade-in value for this device.

Clicking on the Get shipping label button takes them to the PDF of the label they can download and print.

For non-DC residents

If the user's address is not covered by this program, they get a message that they can only recycle their device at a Verizon store. I created multiple variations of this message to give the product owner and leadership some options. 

Fine-tuning and reworking this flow

After a little more digging around leadership priorities and engineering constraints while implementing this solution, I got a few more insights. 

• The preferred way for recycling was the in-store method. We'd prefer if they brought their device to the store, no matter the location. 

  • • • How aggressive do we want to be about pushing the user to bring the device to the store? Do we want to be very clear in letting them know that we'd rather have them do that over mailing the device in? 

• Validating the address at the entry point instead of later in the flow was more efficient. Luckily, this was something the product designer and I had brainstormed earlier, so it helped to secure the data points needed to push for this design.

In response to these findings, I iterated immediately and came up with two versions. I made this flow a little more intuitive and changed the content to be more readable. 

Option 1 

The first option was shorter and not very transparent, but it was definitely easier to digest. When the user clicks on get started, they'd be routed to the relevant information based on their address. 

However, this made for a poor user experience. It put Verizon first, not the user.

Option 2

The second option presented the user with all the information right away. It was a lot of content and could easily be overwhelming to the user. But it was the more transparent approach.

This was not very easy to read. But it provided all the options to the user up front. 

After consulting with leadership and legal once again, we decided option 2 was the way to go.

Routing the user to the right information

For the two versions of the entry point, I created multiple corresponding versions of the modal. 

For DC users

The first option gives the user the shipping label to download, but it also provides a small-text option to find the nearest store, in case they wanted to bring the device to the store. (This is the option I tried to push for.)

The second option just presented them with the shipping label. The logic from the stakeholders was that, if the users moved on from finding the store at the entry point and got to this point, they probably didn't need the store locator. (I disagreed.)

For non-DC users

The focus of the messaging had shifted from whether the user can mail in the device or not. It made more sense to give the user clear instructions instead of telling them they couldn't do something. I changed the content in this modal to have a helpful and reassuring tone, reflecting the tone of the entry point.