A fresh welcome dashboard for new clients
When you switch to a new landline and internet supplier, there’s nothing more frustrating than the waiting time between signing the contract and the actual activation of the line. The waiting becomes even more annoying when you don’t know what’s happening.
Virgin Media understood that, as part of their broader digital onboarding experience strategy, they needed a simple and effective customer onboarding dashboard to keep new customers informed—while simultaneously reducing the volume of calls and emails to their customer service department. The solution? A central self-service onboarding dashboard to guide users through every step of the new telecom customer journey.
To tackle this, I worked alongside a UX designer from CI&T and took the lead on the UI design. My responsibility was to craft a customer-friendly, visually clear self-service portal that would enhance the onboarding experience—minimising uncertainty for users and supporting Virgin Media’s broader UX/UI strategy for customer support.
To frame the solution, we mapped out the entire digital onboarding experience—from the contract being signed to the first bill being issued. By analysing user sentiment during this phase, we uncovered a clear pattern: most frustration came from silence and uncertainty. People didn’t just want updates—they wanted reassurance, clarity, and something to do while waiting.
From there, we defined the core components of the customer onboarding dashboard—aligning them with user expectations and best practices in telecom UX design. Each module was designed to address a specific emotional or informational gap, creating a well-rounded experience that combined transparency, utility, and a touch of fun.
Dashboard components:
- Dynamic timeline: The core of the experience. A real-time, auto-updating visual that showed users where they were in the process—from order confirmation to engineer visit and final activation. We worked closely with developers to verify API feasibility, ensuring timeline events reflected actual backend data. This was key to reducing uncertainty in the telecom onboarding UX.
- Billing info preview: To increase billing transparency, we added a dedicated section that broke down expected costs, billing start dates, and any one-time charges. This helped users feel more financially in control and offered first bill clarity and reduced unexpected charges—key for customer trust.
- Reward section (gamification): To keep users engaged, I introduced a lightweight gamification layer within the onboarding experience, giving users a sense of progression while subtly encouraging product engagement. Users could complete simple actions—like downloading the Virgin Media app or watching a welcome video—to unlock a discount on their first bill. This boosted early engagement while making the experience more enjoyable.
- FAQs and expectations: A compact module of handpicked Q&As tackled the most common concerns. These micro-clarifications supported a self-service support model and played a key role in reducing unnecessary calls to customer service.
To validate our direction, we ran a series of A/B testing interviews. These helped us refine the user journey design, content structure, and visual hierarchy—ensuring users found what they needed fast, without cognitive overload.
The final product was more than a dashboard—it became a focused, supportive onboarding hub that replaced confusion with clarity.
From a UI perspective, the design prioritised readability and ease of navigation. Key information was surfaced first using strong hierarchy, contrast, and spacing. Status indicators and transitions made progress intuitive, while micro-interactions reinforced user feedback without adding noise.
Built with a mobile-first UI and accessibility-compliant structure, the interface followed best practices in responsive telecom dashboard design and adapted gracefully across devices and handled missing data through clear fallback states—ensuring reliability even under imperfect conditions.
Business impact
- Fewer customer service contacts during onboarding, thanks to clearer expectations
- Increased early app engagement through reward-driven interaction
- Higher satisfaction with the first bill, and fewer complaints during activation
- Reduced support load during onboarding—demonstrating how smart UX design reduces customer service dependency in telecom
What was once a silent, frustrating wait became a valuable moment to build trust—powered by thoughtful, user-first design.
Credits
| Client | Virgin Media (UK Telecom provider) |
|---|---|
| Agency | CI&T |
| Lead UI Design | Matteo Miele |
English 
Italian