By Aishwarya Narayan

The story of UPI becoming India’s default payment method is one of acculturing tremendously diverse groups of Indians to digital payments using a seamless, safe and intuitive user interface. UPI has emerged as a practical and accessible payments solution for low-income customers who are possibly new to digital finance. Nearly three in four UPI transactions are of a value below Rs 500 and the average UPI transaction is around Rs 1,500. No other digital payment method can boast of volumes in this ticket size range – the average credit card transaction is three times larger. Clearly, UPI has secured a strong foothold among the financial practices of low-income users.

Several recent developments such as UPI123 Pay (by the RBI) and UPILite, Hello UPI (by the NPCI) reflect the intent to enable and enhance digital payments for the underserved consumer base.

Grievance redressal designs frustrate users with limited digital proficiency

NPCI’s Unified Dispute and Issue Resolution (UDIR) platform has made dispute resolution quicker and more efficient, fostering greater trust in digital payments especially when transactions get stuck. It is being adopted by most UPI providers. Since UPI has a wide customer base among low-income groups beginning to embrace digital finance, it is important to continuously optimise the user-facing experience.

At Dvara Research, we have spent the last year studying how low-to-medium digital proficiency users experience redressal when they encounter UPI transaction-related grievances and disputes. We uncovered an opportunity to substantially improve the user experience of accessing and navigating grievance redressal.

We undertook an evaluative study of the Help/Support functionalities (or grievance redress mechanisms - GRMs) of top UPI apps when used by low-income and low-digital proficiency users. By noting their motivations, preferences, and behaviours while using these GRMs, we arrived at mental models characteristic of how this cohort engages with the app for obtaining redress. We find that the design of contemporary in-app GRMs do not account adequately for these mental models, and this mismatch between UX  design and user expectations makes for an unsatisfactory user experience.  Unsurprisingly, users told us they considered dropping out without completing the entire redressal journey.

Forced to rely on personal networks for support

Consider the user-flows to access and comprehend the in-app GRM. Complaints are usually filed by navigating to the ‘transaction details’ or ‘settings’ screens where grievance redress functionalities are nested, and then following the instructions for lodging the complaint. Our study revealed that awareness about the in-app GRMs and how to access them is low.

Users prefer to approach their personal networks for support in exploring their grievance options. Entry into the GRM for issues that did not involve a transaction or where a transaction was missing, was hard to find. We also found that information presented on-screen is often missed out or not fully understood by users – indicating that apps are not designed for optimal transparency and understandability.

We also found considerable variations between UPI apps in how they structure the sequential steps required to navigate the support process. In some apps, users must navigate through content like videos, FAQs and links, to figure out what their issue was. Some apps allow users to contact customer service (by phone) while others do not. One app only permits file uploads for a complaint only after the complaint has been successfully registered. How the user is required to articulate their problem to the app, varies across apps. This lack of standardisation of architectural steps makes for lower comprehensibility for the user, who we found, uses multiple UPI apps in their phones – the learning and re-learning for each app was taxing for them.

Trust deficit prevails

Finally, we observed that users approach the grievance resolution experience with a great deal of anxiety, mistrust, and lack of confidence. Users feared their actions while obtaining redress would negatively affect them.

One user was reluctant to type their problem in the provided textbox as they feared their account would be terminated. When presented with problem categories to select from, some users could not fully understand each option provided, and were hesitant to tap any option in fear that they would make a mistake which would affect their financial life. Given the capabilities of UDIR to provide quick resolution of grievances, there is really no need for the user to experience such anxiety.

Our work illuminates the user’s expectations about the grievance experience and provides practical inputs on how to improve it. It is possible to address these mismatches between design and expectation through simple fixes. For instance, how should the user’s navigation journey be structured to improve comprehension? How can the app build trust by allaying feelings of anxiety or fear?

The answers to these and other critical questions have been synthesised into a design toolkit containing tangible recommendations on appropriate copywriting, call-to-action buttons, UX screen flows, and other interactive components. Our design recommendations and tested prototypes prioritise self-resolution within the app.

(Aishwarya Narayan is Senior Research Associate, Dvara Research.)

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.