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Adyen

Remote troubleshooting

Remote troubleshooting for Adyen’s payment devices, so a broken terminal gets fixed in store in minutes instead of being swapped out over days. I led the design from ranking the top support issues to launch.

Company
Adyen provides payment solutions to more than 5,000 customers, including Nike, Adidas, Chanel, Hermès, Netflix, Microsoft, Booking.com and Spotify.
Industry
Point of sale
Year
2023–2024

Context

A device in a drawer is a till that’s closed

With more than half a million devices in the field, you never know where a payment device might end up, or when it might stop working altogether. As soon as one did, it usually ended up in a drawer, waiting for a replacement to arrive. Every minute a device is out of use means lost sales and frustrated shoppers.

The old Customer Area page for a Castles AMS1 terminal, listing its serial number, merchant, store and last activity, with only a Check connection button
The old Diagnostics page for a store, showing a long list of Verifone release versions and nothing else
Old designs. No visibility or control over devices remotely.

Problem and user needs

A two-sided problem

Store staff were afraid to troubleshoot, so they escalated straight away. Support had no tools to see what was happening, so they could only guide staff over the phone.

  • 500K+

    devices in the field

  • 25%+

    of returned devices in 2023 had no fault found

  • ~100K

    in preventable returns

  • Two-sided problem.

    End users were hesitant to troubleshoot, and support lacked the tools to help them.

  • No visibility.

    Nobody, from support to the business owner, could see the health of their device estate.

  • Asynchronous process.

    Hours could pass between a device failing, a ticket being raised and someone responding.

Quotes from interviews on a Zoom call. Support Lead: “It doesn’t work” doesn’t get us far. Tech support: No feedback loop exists, so we don’t know what step actually solved the issue. Tech support: No direct view of device screen. Implementation Manager: Users would rather get a replacement than waste time on troubleshooting.

User needs

  • Store staff

    Know if the device is fit to take payments, and what to do when it isn’t, without calling anyone.

  • Tech Support

    See a device’s status and fix it remotely, in one session.

Business needs

  • Business admins

    An overview of every device in their stores and which ones need attention.

  • Adyen

    Fewer unnecessary returns and replacements.

Approach

After shadowing tech support, I led a collaborative design session with them to map out the current state of affairs and brainstorm possible solutions.

Goal
Find which issues staff or support could solve without a replacement.
Input
Support tickets and replacement data
Outcome
Most network related issues could be fixed remotely with adequate tooling.
Stakeholders
Product, Engineering, Tech Support, and partners EposNow, Toast and Palisis
A Figma board titled Remote troubleshooting mapping the current process: a terminal stops working, and the terminal operator, in-house support team, administrator and IPP Support each try to resolve it, with challenges noted on sticky notes

Findings

Support ticketsper month
  • Network issues~77Related to connectivity, software updates and bluetooth devices
  • Hardware issues~16
Replacements
  • Network issues~47
  • Hardware issues~229Related to card interaction points, printer and volume control

Iterations

Where should a remote session live?

Support agents are power users of our back office, so the session had to fit into how they already worked. I explored a few first concepts:

  • A new tab.

    The session opens on its own, away from the device page.

  • Taking over the page.

    A side panel covers the page the agent is on.

  • Embedded in the page.

    The session sits next to the device’s details.

  • A modal over the list.

    The session opens in a window on top of the Terminals list.

Concept: a Remote session side panel showing the payment terminal screen, covering the dimmed terminal settings page
Taking over the page. First concept.
Concept: the Remote session panel embedded next to the terminal’s device, account and network details
Embedded in the page. Second concept.
Concept: a centred Remote session modal over the Terminals list, showing the terminal’s payment screen next to its events log, with controls to restart, power off or end the session
A modal over the list. Third concept.

Interviews and prototyping made it clear that being able to multitask mattered most. I went with an almost full-screen modal that agents can collapse whenever they need to go back to a page and finish the diagnostics.

Solution

What we shipped

Collapsible modal. Agents keep the session running while they work on another page.
On-device diagnostics. To diagnose issues and get back to business quickly.
Back office. Support sees and controls the device during the session.
Device. Staff enter a code to let support in.
A remote session in progress: the Customer Area shows the terminal’s payment screen and event log, while the payment terminal asks staff to start a remote support session
Remote troubleshooting. Support and admins see a device’s details and act on it without being in store.

Impact

Fixed in minutes, instead of days

  • Fully autonomous

    End to back and forth

    Admins and support can now troubleshoot autonomously, reducing the number of touchpoints.

  • Fixed in minutes

    4.5×

    faster at resolving network issues. Incidents that could take days are solved in one remote session.

  • Immediate adoption

    5

    active merchants piloted it straight away, as our collaborative approach with Tech Support and customers (EposNow, Toast, Palisis) led to quick adoption from everyone involved.

Learnings

  • A double-edged sword.

    The same problem can feel very different depending on where you are: an annoyance in the back office, a crisis at a busy till.

  • What you want might not be what you need.

    Staff were so used to asking for a replacement that they’d lost faith in their own ability to fix things. Reducing the cognitive load gave them back a sense of control.