Drew Christiano

Overview

Launched in 2017, Xfinity Mobile is Comcast’s new MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) service, offering free talk & text and affordable unlimited or by-the-gig data options, available exclusively to Comcast internet customers.

Xfinity Mobile brought on Think Company during the pre-launch phases to aid in product definition and conceptual exploration, turning to the team post-launch to support feature development and facilitate strategic planning.

My Roles

During my time at Xfinity Mobile, I worked as a Sr. Experience Designer for Think Company on numerous initiatives—from pre/post-launch planning and platform development, to conceptual R&D, to long-term strategic roadmapping.

As the in-house design team grew, I worked across project teams to create consistent, usable omni-channel customer experiences. Notable projects and roles included:

• Lead visual designer for the My Account web & native experience
• Lead conceptual designer for a mobile-first acquisition path strategy
• Associate designer and curator of our visual design language
• Visual designer for an integrated communications platform R&D project
• Conceptual designer and researcher for exploring self-service customer support channels

Our Challenges

When your service is in its infancy and your design team quickly goes from five people to 30, there’s bound to be some challenges along the way. The greatest challenges we faced, however, weren’t those of a growing team or an immature product, but rather navigating the tangles of launching and supporting a new service for a Fortune 50 company in less than two years.

With reputations and stock value on the line, it was critical for the design team to quickly react to rapid, sometimes signficiant changes in direction as we sped toward launch. Two specific challenges come to mind when I reflect on my time at Xfinity Mobile.

Just months before public release, the pricing model for our data plans was completely reworked, leaving the account management platform unable to adapt. After brainstorming ways to retrofit the existing platform, the decision was made to completely start over. Through weeks of restrospectives and collaboration, we were able to identify the shortcomings of the previous platform, and designed a solution with the flexibility to scale with the company’s growth.

When senior leadership considered a completely different distribution model for the launch our service, and wanted to know what that would look like by the end of the week, our team rallied. After a 36-hour spike, we had vetted the technical constraints, updated our messaging, and adjusted our sales funnel to accomodate an alternate method for signing customers up for Xfinity Mobile.

Our team thrived when presented with challenges that demanded sudden pivots and well-vetted solutions. With each new challenge, our team grew stronger and better able to respond to the needs of both our customers and the business.