What is the best way to end a call between two parties (timer involved) in a non-disruptive way?

Question

We are doing an app wherein one party (customer) can have a video conference with another party (consultant) in limited time (e.g. 15 minutes).

What is the best way to end the connection between two parties in a way that doesn't feel disruptive?

1. Don't end the connection right away. Use the timer as just an indicator and allow one party to be able to control when the connection ends.

2. Create an alert to tell both parties that the connection will be lost, say 5 minutes before the time is up.

I like Option 1 because it's the least disruptive. However, this conference call is pre-paid (say, 15 minutes is $30). If the connection doesn't automatically disconnect, the conference time may exceed 15 minutes. And we are not able to collect additional charges as the service is pre-paid. There's no way to force the customer to pay surcharge / additional fees, after the conference is over. (Unless, we automatically deduct from their credit card, although, I'm not sure if this is ethical?)

How should we approach this problem?

Answer 1

I personally feel the Second approach is a lot better.

This ensures that the party doesn't get to extend a call each time. Think of how many Consultants might extend time if you give them the control. It is biased towards both parties and might take a while to educate both of them to know who can extend the call and who can't and this might even lead to clients asking consultants to extend the call when there's no reason to.

Time is a valuable thing. When you are giving 15 minutes for both parties to speak, they will try to make sure that they cut down everything else and talk about important things that really matter shortened down. If you give them a warning before 5 minutes of disconnection, they will summarize their talk and probably discuss what can be done next or if the client needs to meet the consultant to proceed.

Let's say as a Client I have used all my 15 minutes and my call disconnected. Being a Prepaid service, don't actually disconnect the call but put it on hold and use a Payment screen allowing different time options to extend the call.

For example:

You have used all of your Prepaid time. The Consultant Mr. XYZ is still free to reconnect with for another 2 minutes.

Reconnect with Mr. XYZ for another 5 Minutes for $10?

Answer 2

I find this question also to consider the business model, not a pure UX question.

I mean, from the point of view of the user, for sure, the first, less disruptive, approach is better: "Hey, I can keep the connection w/o paying for it". On the other hand, from the point of view of the business, this is bad unless it is willing to take the cost for the, extended, unpaid time.

With this in mind, I think the service should make it clear to the customer that he cannot have the cake and eat it too. Meaning, he cannot expect the system to pay for the extended time.

So, I think there should be two payments models: One is pre-paid, then you get the countdown warning before the time is up, and the call ends. Second is pay-per-minute when the customer grant the system to charge him per minute. Also a combination of the two is OK.

Answer 3

I would suggest to mix both of the approaches.

Your goal is to provide excellent user experience and it should not be a big problem if you extend the call with 2 minutes or so. The important thing here is not the strict 15 minutes call but the happy user.

Imagine the user didn't understand something and needs additional 30-60 seconds more and just then the call drops... The customer will be very frustrated and probably won't come back. Even worse they may want a refund. This is bad UX and you want to avoid it.

In my opinion, the agent should be able to extend the call for free with fixed amount of time: 1 or 2 minutes so the customer gets the information he/she has paid for. The important thing is that the customer gets enough or even more information than promised so he will be happy and return again. Disruptions might only cause negative UX.

In addition, the time indicator is mandatory for that limited time and should be used.

Answer 4

If the business model says this has to be prepaid, I like the idea of a countdown timer on the edge of the frame that changes to yellow with 5 minutes left, red with 2 minutes left, and flashing red with 10 seconds left. This can be relatively unobtrusive but still informative.

If the call hits zero seconds left, kill the audio and provide the client with a 2 minutes window to extend the call.

Answer 5

Don’t cut off the call; just bill incrementally for extra time, and let the user end the call.

No matter how you spin it, or warn it in advance, having a call cut off will make most users unhappy. However, there’s a very well-established model for this, used by many professions: bill for the service, by time, at a clear pre-arranged rate.

Make the terms clear from the start: 15 minutes of calling is covered by the flat rate of $X; beyond that, call is billed at $Y/min. Warn when the 15 minutes is approaching; and indicate clearly when it’s up, with a reminder of the extended billing rate. This focuses the client to wrap up the call, but doesn’t take control out of their hands.

Note that this — keeping the call going, but billing for it automatically at a small incremental rate — is very different in effect from offering a large block of extension time at another flat rate. The latter may well also be good to offer, as part of your pricing structure — but it doesn’t help with the problem of how to end the call without alienating the user.

Answer 6

Alarm clocks have a "snooze" button, so the alarm goes off, you should wake up - but you can choose to have an extra 5/10 minutes in bed.

Perhaps with your call, you could do a countdown timer as you'd suggested in the first case (although I'd keep it obviously counting down throughout the whole of the last couple of minutes).

Perhaps one or both parties might have access to the "snooze" button to add an extra 60 seconds if they need it. Naturally, the party who presses "snooze" could have a (small) fee for doing so. They could do it indefinitely, but it'd get really annoying to do it so encourage them to end the call naturally, without giving a hard cut-off. You also deter someone doing it just to keep a call going, since the "snoozer" is the one who pays.