Bharti Airtel, popularly known as Airtel, is India’s second-largest telecommunications service provider (followed by Reliance Jio), with 387.77 million subscribers. Founded by Sunil Bharti Mittal in 1995, it has roots in the Indian subcontinent and currently serves users from over 18 countries.
Airtel launched the Airtel Thanks App in October 2018, with over 100 million users today. In 2020, it was recognised as one of the most innovative mobile applications in the reputed ET Telecom Awards 2020.
With 4.1-star ratings on the Play Store and 4.3-star ratings on the Apple App Store. This app is the one-stop destination for engaging in all Airtel services like recharge, DTH, loan, postpaid, UPI, Wi-Fi, new prepaid SIM, Wi-Fi camera, Airtel black combo, FASTag recharge, Airtel finance, office internet and many more.
Whether a user wants to make a UPI payment, track the recharge plans of their family members, enhance their credits for loans, experience 30X superfast speed with 5G Plus, or make hassle-free payments. They can do it all and more successfully on this app.
In 2020, the Airtel Thanks App was updated to support regional languages and reach more Indian users. Hindi, Telegu, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi speakers can access the app in their own language.
The Rise of Airtel Thank App’s Popularity
- Any new user who gets any Airtel service, be it a new SIM card or a Wi-Fi connection, usually downloads the Airtel Thanks App. With a few clicks on the app, they can become users of the second most used telecommunications service.
- Airtel Thanks App provides all services under one roof, so users don’t have to install and maintain multiple apps on their phones. With a single app, users can make UPI payments, recharge their phones and Wi-Fi, buy DTH services, solve Airtel-related queries, and do much more.
- Many users use the app to take advantage of Airtel Finance’s financial benefits, which are too good to ignore. For instance, Airtel Payments Bank users can earn up to 7% interest.
- Upon recharging from the Airtel Thanks App, users get cashback, rewards, and free subscriptions to the OTT platform.
From Data to Decision #UserFeedbackDecoded
- Many users have complained about terrible customer service, which is of little to no use. They do not get prompt responses, and their requests are closed without proper solutions or reasons. The app makes it harder to reach an executive.
- Some users faced issues with Wi-Fi routers. Initially, they could change the Wi-Fi password in the app and restart the router remotely, but after some time, the app stopped supporting these features.
- They faced issues with the Airtel Payments Bank services. Users find the app to be slow when they want to pay bills.
- Thanks to its minimalistic design, customers are happy with the app’s overall experience. It is easy to navigate without feeling overwhelmed by unnecessary features, and all the essential options, from checking data usage to paying bills and recharging, are at their fingertips.
We at Yellow Slice researched the user experience for the Airtel Thanks App. Despite Airtel being the second most popularly used telecommunication network provider, their app is not up to the mark. We reviewed users’ reviews on the Play Store and Apple App Store, listened to real stories users faced around us regarding the app, and then concluded our findings.
Our review determined what users liked and disliked about the Airtel Thanks App and where it needed improvement. To improve the app’s overall experience, our UX designers applied their knowledge to make an analysis that would solve the current and future issues users might face.
Airtel Thanks App UX Review Led by Adisha, A Design Expert at YellowSlice
Reviewed by:
- Aashvi Sheth
- Sagar Bhole
- Harshini
- Steve Nazareth
- Srishti Maurya
- Rohan K
- Ishwari
- Aadesh Padave
- Sonalika
- Shital More
This is a breakdown of the findings about users’ pain. Let’s determine whether the users were thankful or thankless for the Airtel Thanks App.
Intrusive Notifications
Have you met anybody who doesn’t get annoyed when a certain app bombards them with multiple notifications throughout the day? No, right? Airtel Thanks App is guilty of committing this, too. Users are not fans of unnecessary notifications for either recharging or reinstallation. Designers should be very mindful of the frequency of notifications.
Accessibility Features
A few elements of the app make it accessible, such as a simple (can look amateurish) UI design with large enough buttons, voice commands, and screen reader compatibility. This inclusivity ensures that users with varying physical abilities can still utilize the app effectively. The app’s responsiveness is also relatively fast.
For accessibility to be fully considered and increase the business ROI, it has to cover all the design elements. For instance, the QR code placement is good, but the background colour does not highlight the QR button, which might make users abruptly stop their journey.
3D Illustrations are Very Appealing
The 3D illustrations add to its accessibility, as users can figure out what a particular button does with just one look at the illustrations. The perfect use of gradient colours and subtle tones of greys and shadows made the illustrations attractive for users to click on. However, the skeleton screens’ colours do not match the rest of the app’s UI.
Icons are Inconsistent
The app uses a bento grid layout, which is supposed to give the icons a compartmentalised look. However, the icons are inconsistent; for example, some are filled, and some are stroked. Also, some icons use animations, and some use real images.
Basic Internet Service Requires Basic Steps 💡
Notify Users Without Disturbing
As soon as users install the Airtel Thanks App, they get multiple notifications without signing up for a service. The app sends notifications through different mediums, such as WhatsApp, SMS, and push notifications.
Redundant notifications should be divided into categories like high-priority and low-priority notifications, and users should be able to choose which notifications they would like to receive to feel less disturbed.
Consistency is A Very Important Principle
“Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t have to worry about what will happen.” — Jakob Nielsen.
Consistency in all UI elements is very important so that the user is not confused or distracted by the different ways in which the same thing is implied. For example, the text on the app should be consistently capitalised, as it distracts the user by noticing these minor things. Better UX copies boost user experience.
Speed Can Be Improved
The Airtel Thanks App can get slow and use better mobile responsiveness. The designers have used a plain gradient screen for the Skeleton screen, which is not very interactive. Hence, a more interactive and exciting skeleton screen will urge the user to use the app more. The chunky images can also cause slower app loading time; it should be optimised for better performance.
The Minimalism is A Work Well Done
Airtel Thanks App is the one-stop shop for many Airtel services, and that’s why the app’s first screen has nine slides that a user has to navigate through by sliding through each of them. Apps such as this that offer many services can be challenging to maintain minimalism because they are bound to have many buttons and modules.
However, the UI can be designed so that the user isn’t pounded by information and has the time and energy to go through every section of the app.
Expert Review by Adisha
I wrote this review to help people avoid UI/UX flaws in their digital products. If a big brand like Airtel can make these mistakes, so can you and your design team. Digital products like apps and websites are a huge part of any brand’s customer journey, so it is of the utmost importance that we learn from the mistakes of others.
Yellow Slice’s designers can help you create an error-free design project. Contact us, and let’s set up a meeting to find discrepancies in your design and improve them so that your customers won’t write bad reviews.
FAQs — Decoding the Airtel Thank Experience
Q. Are the users happy with the Airtel Thanks App?
Many users find the app helpful, but a large fraction are also unhappy with the whole experience. Every time an Airtel user contacts customer support, they are directed to use the Thanks App, but the customer support on the app is not very helpful. People have complained about receiving calls from unknown numbers asking them to use the Thanks App, experiencing glitches, and finding it challenging to get the profile details right in the first few tries. Accessibility to the app can boost its performance multiplefold.
Q. What have we learned about the importance of UI and UX by reviewing the Airtel Thanks App?
Consistency is critical to designing a digital product’s UI and UX. Unnecessary app notifications about movies and news and the need to add your bank details so that you can link them with their Airtel money worked as a privacy nightmare for some users.
Some parts of the app should be able to work offline when needed. If users are facing network issues and need to communicate with customer care, how would they do that? It’s ironic since they can’t communicate without access to the internet.
