An added feature to Mint Mobile, allowing consumers to have a monthly unlimited data plan with multi-line discounts.
Peoples cell phone provider of choice is usually a postpaid plan at one of the big three U.S. carriers: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. This is often because of advertisements, availability of retail locations, ability to finance phones directly with carriers, deals on latest flagships, and a perceived higher value.
Multi-line discounts are also another big reason people stay with their cell phone provider. Many adults stay on their parents family plan well into adulthood. Because it is cheaper to have all the lines on one account versus each spending more to have their own account.
Mint Mobile has carved out a niche in the prepaid market. They do buy in bulk plans. You purchase a 3-month intro plan then can transition to a 12-month plan to lock in same pay rate. Postpaid cellphone users who have expensive monthly bills don’t seem to mind buying in bulk since it costs about 2-3 times what their monthly postpaid bill is. And they get their phone bill paid for one year.
There is an area Mint Mobile hasn’t done: monthly plans and group/multi-line discounts.
Their prepaid competition, such as Cricket Wireless and Metro by T-Mobile, offer enticing multi-line unlimited data plans with perks included. What if Mint Mobile had a multi-line plan of their own? This is what this feature add-on project is about.
Create a monthly unlimited data plan with multi-line discounts and perks that integrates into Mint Mobile’s existing branding and interface.
Many other prepaid budget carriers offer multi-line discounts. The main competitors of Mint Mobile are Cricket Wireless, Metro by T-Mobile, and US Mobile.
T-Mobile (postpaid) could also be considered a competitor since they have there Magenta plan which is $140/month (taxes and fees included) for 4 lines. Unlimited data and Netflix perk included.
All four of these brands offer multi-line discounts that also include perks. The perks include access to video streaming services such as Prime Video, HBO MAX (w/ ads), Netflix (standard), or Apple TV +. Multi-line discounts are another way to help keep customers with the service longer.
A competitor analysis was completed to document the features, pricing, and notable aspects of Mint Mobile’s competitor offerings.
I conducted two user interviews to hear directly from people who use prepaid cell phone services. One user was a current Mint Mobile subscriber and the other person had switched from Mint Mobile to Cricket Wireless.
The current Mint Mobile user was married with no children. He used Mint Mobile for him and his wife. He had had bad experiences at retail locations before with salespeople trying to constantly upsell him things. He didn’t mind paying for 12 months of service up front because his and his wife’s renewal’s were around tax time so he used his tax refund to pay both bills. However, he did say other cell phone plan deals were enticing.
The second user interview was a former Mint Mobile subscriber. He was married with one child. He switched from Mint Mobile to Cricket Wireless for a few reasons. The main reason he switched from Mint Mobile to Cricket Wireless was because Cricket had a better deal for multiple lines.
I wanted to discover any possible patterns in the how people managed, decided on, and used their cell phone plans. So, a survey for sent out. 25 people completed it. The questions mirrored what I asked in the user interviews.
Many users reported customer service and bad coverage as things they disliked about their cell phone provider. 48% of users reported getting deals and promotions as something they like about cell phone providers.
Nearly half of users reported being on a multi-line plan. Many of them also reported to using less than 10GB of mobile data per month.
64% of users reported to not using a prepaid carrier. 48% reported uses Verizon or AT&T. There is still ample opportunity for user acquisition.
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The main things that would make users switch cell phone providers
Common frustrations
Something notable reported was 64% of users being on postpaid cell phone plans. 48% of users reported using Verizon or AT&T. I wondered if people still had outdated perceptions of prepaid services. The common stereotypes being how prepaid cell phone services are for low-income, bad credit people and only have cheap phones.
Many of the surveyors stated they had no apprehensions about using prepaid cell phone services. Some of them had been with their current provider for as long as 5, 10, even 20 years and had no desire to switch services.
A lot of the respondents were on unlimited data plan but mostly used under 10GB of data every month. People like the peace of mind being on an unlimited data plan provides. A business can deliver that without having to worry too much about overloading the network with heavy data users.
Having a set of patterns uncovered during research and a user persona made to encapsulate user needs and pain points, I now arrived at figuring out what features needed to be present. What did people need to really sell them on signing up for Mint Mobile’s monthly unlimited data plan with multi-line discounts?
A feature matrix was done inside Figma’s FigJam to prioritize what features needed to be present, the level of work it would take to complete each of them, and the expected outcome.
It was very interesting getting to do this design project. Prepaid has always had this lagging stereotype about being only for low-income people and those with bad credit. Many don’t realize you can use the latest flagship phones such as the iPhone 15 or Samsung S23 on prepaid and save a bunch of money versus using postpaid.
I admire Mint Mobile because they have been shaking up the prepaid industry. They popularized the “buy in bulk” approach to cell phone plans.
The user research phase showed me people don’t put a lot of thought into their cell phone service. They usually just use what their parents have, or what their family has told them about. And it usually takes a bad experience with current carrier or a really good deal in order for them to switch.
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