2021
Airtel Thanks App
App & Web
Telecom
B2C
Airtel Thanks app is an all-in-one self-care app used by 100M+ Airtel customers. It lets users manage mobile, broadband, and DTH services, pay bills, recharge, track usage, and access exclusive rewards.
Timeline
8 Weeks
My Role
Sr. Product Designer
Team
1 UX Designer, 1 UX Researcher, 3 PMs, 1 Data Analyst
Situation
Airtel’s prepaid recharges contributed ~80% of total revenue, yet 68% of users recharged via third-party apps or offline channels, incurring convenience fees
Only ~20% of users entering the recharge flow initiated payment, and just 54% completed it, indicating severe funnel drop-offs
Existing recharge experience was fragmented across Mobility, DTH, Broadband, and Data Card journeys
Task
Redesign the Airtel Thanks prepaid recharge experience to increase in-app recharge adoption, reduce drop-offs, and improve key revenue metrics
Create a scalable, unified recharge journey starting with Mobility and extensible to other LOBs
Address usability, discoverability, and trust issues impacting conversion
Action
Led UX design across an 8-week engagement with PMs, a UX researcher, and a data analyst
Conducted primary research with 52 Airtel & Jio users across shopkeepers, blue-collar workers, professionals, and gig workers to uncover behavioral patterns and pain points
Mapped the end-to-end recharge journey into Discovery → Consideration → Purchase → Post-purchase milestones to systematically address drop-offs
Benchmarked Airtel flows against Paytm, PhonePe, GPay, Amazon Pay, and Vi to identify best practices in search, filters, recommendations, and offer visibility
Result
Shipped the redesigned journey to 10% of the user base within 4 weeks
Achieved a +13% increase in successful recharges over a 60-day observation period
Drove +17% increase in plan upgrades and 30% reduction in downgrades through behavioural nudges
Mobility design system later scaled to DTH, Broadband LCO, and Data Card journeys, multiplying business impact
Launch and Impact
Shipped the redesigned journey to 10% of the user base within 4 weeks
Achieved a +13% increase in successful recharges over a 60-day observation period
Drove +17% increase in plan upgrades and 30% reduction in downgrades through behavioural nudges
Mobility design system later scaled to DTH, Broadband LCO, and Data Card journeys, multiplying business impact