Member name change - trial - The giffgaff community

Member name change - trial

shivanshuit914

Hello everyone,

My name is Shiv, and I work in one of the development teams here at giffgaff. I've been really excited about talking to our community for a while and I’m happy to announce a new trial we are starting tomorrow.
What sparked the trial?

From our investigations, we can see that quite a large number of people that want to join giffgaff get a bit stuck when it comes to choosing a member name and don’t continue with the journey. If you pop on over to our member ideas platform, giffgaff Labs, we’ve seen our fair share of ideas related to the member name and improving that journey, so we know that this is something our members care about.

So, what are we trialling?

We decided to put our heads together and came up with a prototype that we think it could be the foundation for many beneficial changes in the future.

When a new member signs up giffgaff for the first time and goes through activation, we will now provide an auto-generated member name for them. They don't like the name? No problem. They’ll be able to change or confirm this member name when they first log into their account after activation.

To make sure that everyone knows what their member name is and how they can change it, we have a follow up email after activation that will guide them into the process. There will also be a confirmation screen on their first log in, just to double check that they are happy with the member name.

Want to see how the journey looks? Have a look in the spoiler below. ( we will come back with more screenshots)

How long will this trial last?

It depends on how quickly our new members can trial it. Because this is quite a significant change if we go ahead with it, we want to make sure we have a representative number of members going through his journey. As soon as we hit that number we will stop, regroup, share the findings with you and make a decision.

What are the benefits and ambitions that come with this prototype?

The one clear and immediate benefit is that, by making the joining journey smoother for any new members, the process becomes quicker and easier. For the long term, we see this trial as the first step into looking at opportunities when it comes to the member name. Starting small and giving everyone the chance to understand what is needed in order to make even more changes is, we believe, the best way to move things forward in making the experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible.

Exciting times ahead, folks! Hope you all are as excited about this as we are.

Here are some Q&As that might help:

So how are the new members going to access account without member name ?
Behind the scene we are auto generating member name for member and showing it on the order page after successful activation.

I forgot/missed my auto generated member name ?
We are sending a welcome email which has the auto generated member name front and centre.

But what if I don’t like my auto generated member name ?
We are still allowing member to change their member name. After successful activation there will be a link to change/confirm member name where member can change their member name once. This information is also presented in the welcome email sent after activation and just in case they missed that, when they first log in after activation they will be presented with a Confirm/Change member name screen.

How many times I can change my member name ?
Currently we are running prototype test so for now you can change only once.

I am an existing member can I change my member name ?
Unfortunately, not this time but we are working on providing that feature in future.

janedonaldson1967

shivanshuit914 Thank you, this is interesting. I have changed my name via deed poll hence my request to try to change username. If i could be included in the trial might i be able to change my username do you think please? Thank you

richybhoy36

shivanshuit914 Its a good isea ! But it would be good if old members could change their member name ! If possible !

skhan_786

shivanshuit914 maybe minus £5 from payback soo people won’t unnecessarily change there username everytime

bradturner

shivanshuit914 I think this is a good idea. Could there not be a section at sign-up that allows the user to choose a membername right now insted of at first login – the default should still be an auto-generated membername?

peterdbsc

shivanshuit914

This is an excellent idea.
If it works, maybe you could somehow extend it to existing members who’d like to change their username?

stephenpperry

shivanshuit914 wait is this still being explored?

cairesmith

shivanshuit914
I would love to be able to change my member name as it was spelt wrong due to a faulty keyboard plus I would prefer to use my married name now but my member name is my partly my maiden name how long until we can do this?? I’ve been a member/customer for at least 6 years

endorphin

Thanks for the update @shivanshuit914

I think you should highlight, if you're not doing so already, in the email and on the name change screen that:

members are only allowed ONE username change

their username will be displayed on a publicly viewable forum if they decide to post at any time

they should take their time to choose a replacement username which they won't regret later

roxy_r

Thanks @endorphin! valid points. We just need to find the right balance in displaying the right info without it becoming overwhelming. But that is what trials and prototypes are for, I believe. We all learn from them and there is always the chance to improve.

I am really looking fwd to this and what it can become in the future 😀

endorphin

Unfortunately @roxy_r no matter how hard you stress those points there will always be some who overlook/ignore/don't fully understand them! :O

alex_w

endorphin wrote:

Thanks for the update @shivanshuit914

I think you should highlight, if you're not doing so already, in the email and on the name change screen that:

members are only allowed ONE username change

their username will be displayed on a publicly viewable forum if they decide to post at any time

they should take their time to choose a replacement username which they won't regret later

@endorphin Thanks for the feedback. On each point:

There's copy present that states this, but it's admittedly currently in "fine print" that could be overlooked.

That's implied in the copy currently, but could be made clearer probably.

There's "choose wisely" copy, but it's again in the fine print.

We'll discuss these points with our written words experts and see what we can come up with. Both you and @roxy_r make perfectly valid points.

brulaw

@roxy_r

This does have the potential to be a good development , It also has the potential to go wrong ( be confusing ) , I think the points made by @endorphin are things that DO need top be made clearer ( to avoid people missing the information ) , if the implementation ( trial ) of this goes well it should be a worthwhile step forward ....Hope it goes well .

zahra_javid

This is fantastic

zahra_javid

@alex_w

This is good for new members but what about existing members how will they be able to change there membername?

as7861

Hi @alex_w

This is so awesome.

Benefits apart from this would be that their will be less time activating (and trying to figure out a username)

Also no more swear words, phone number etc. (however i would be interested to know would the creating a account for forum only still exist as part of this process ? (personally i would prevent this option and focus on the need for creating a new username for forum to be eliminated (changing username once would be one step)

Improvement - would the user get a text message to say Nice one you sim cad is fully activated. Here is your login username. Just wonder as it would help tell the new comer of their username and that the sim card is activated. One hammer two nails haha.

This is the idea - https://labs.giffgaff.com/idea/14406707/ability-to-change-username (it has 156 votes currently but i am sure their was and are more vote around somewhere) So today giffgaff has made 156 people and more happier 🙂

jokeyboi77

Wow this is great long awaited feature for alot of members, I can't wait to see it being rolled out for existing members aswell, and to see who actually changes their username. :manwink:

jokeyboi77

zahra_javid wrote:

@alex_w

This is good for new members but what about existing members how will they be able to change there membername?

@zahra_javid

It looks like we'll get it at some point giffgaff are working on the feature for us.

davidevans0000

looks good as a few members keep asking if they can change their usernames.

lucy1i

Good idea. I just voted for the 'ability to change user name' on Labs too!

sophiejam92

Is it only for new member

tradertall

"I am an existing member can I change my member name ?

Unfortunately, not this time but we are working on providing that feature in future."

ah that's disappointing ☹

yaseend

When I signed up I didn't know my username would be public and I wasn't allowed to change it. It's a bit pointless now after using the site/forums for a year.

Changing your username after that length of time would cause too much confusion as a lot of people already know each others usernames.

pitfold

Thanks for the information @shivanshuit914

roxy_r

Thanks for all the input 🙂 This is the beginning and if it goes well, there are loads of opportunities ahead of us when it comes to how we communicate the member name and how we implement this for existing members.. I cannot wait to see how this trial goes and if it does make a difference for new members joining us.

@yaseend , I agree, it could be confusing so maybe there could be something like a member name history on the community profile page? Don't know if that is possible but I am sure we can find ways to mitigate it.

zahra_javid

roxy_r wrote:

Thanks for all the input 🙂 This is the beginning and if it goes well, there are loads of opportunities ahead of us when it comes to how we communicate the member name and how we implement this for existing members.. I cannot wait to see how this trial goes and if it does make a difference for new members joining us.
@yaseend , I agree, it could be confusing so maybe there could be something like a member name history on the community profile page? Don't know if that is possible but I am sure we can find ways to mitigate it.

@roxy_r im very happy about this member change trial.

After all members have been asking about this since giffgaff started. Looking forward to the feature for existing members too. Love the idea of member name history in profile.

Keep up the good work.

harrrrrry

@roxy_r

maybe there could be something like a member name history on the community profile page?

A forum I used to visit many years ago did this by having a one-month changeover period in which the new and old membernames were displayed together on all posts -- something like bs2467 (formerly billsmith67). After a month, the previous username disappears altogether (even on old posts) and just bs2467 shows.

Yes, if I remember correctly it was possible to look up previous usernames in the profile for a longer period, maybe 3 months, and presumably longer for authorised staff.

Preserving previous usernames publicly and permanently probably defeats the purpose of changing the username, but some limited continuity is useful to reduce confusion at the time of the name change.