Compatibility of Plans and Bundles in Exchange Categories

Exchange categories give your customers an upgrade and downgrade path for plan and bundle products. The groupings within an exchange category cause the creation of a carousel container in which customers can view and exchange the products within each grouping. When there are differences between a customer's current product and the catalog version of the product, the classification of the differences can affect the experience the customer will have when viewing the catalog and when exchanging products.

Difference Classifications

Differences in product settings fall into two classifications. These classifications are in order of importance. The two classifications are:

Compatible and significant
Compatible and insignificant

Product Settings Compatible for Exchange, But Significant

The following plan or bundle settings different from other products in the exchange category are deemed "significant."

Description
Pricing Model (bundles only)
Plan Usage
Per Call Limit
Tax Classification
Availability

Product Settings Compatible for Exchange, But Insignificant

The following plan or bundle settings different from other products in the exchange category are deemed "insignificant" unless there are also differences in the settings from the significant group.

Name
Short Description
Icon
Translations
Price
Usage Display
Display Detailed Usage Data
Terminates when usage allowance runs out (plans only)
Terminates when all product usage allowances run out (bundles only)

Exchangeability Examples

In the examples below, the category displays as a carousel, and the plan in bold is the customer's current plan, which they will see as pre-selected.

The first several examples assume that you start with a single exchange category containing 3 messaging plans:

Text 100, a 100 message plan for $1.00
Text 200, a 200 message plan for $2.00
Text 300, a 300 message plan for $3.00

A single carousel with 3 messaging plans.
Text 100	Text 200	Text 300

A fundamental principle that you will see in these examples is that customers can always keep their current renewable plan, even if that plan has been changed (or even deleted from the store). This "grandfathering" continues as long as the plan is not canceled.

Example 1

For this example, John's current plan is the Text 100 plan. The only differences between the plans that John can see in the carousel are the plan names,

John's initial view of the carousel.
Text 100	Text 200	Text 300

John wants to exchange for the Text 200 plan.

If the only differences between the Text 100 and Text 200 plans are compatible and insignificant, John can make the exchange.
If there are differences between the Text 100 and Text 200 plans and at least one difference is compatible and significant, John can make the exchange.
In this scenario, there's really no difference between compatible/insignificant differences and compatible/significant differences in either the way the plans are displayed or which ones John can exchange for.

Example 2

For this example, John's current plan is the Text 200 plan.

Text 100

Text 200

Text 300

You have decided that "Text" doesn't really reflect the capability of these plans and you want to change the names.

Name is in the compatible and insignificant classification. John now sees a carousel that looks like this:

Messaging 100

Messaging 200

Messaging 300

There could also be cases when plan differences result in no discernable visible differences between the display of John's current plan and the carousel version of it, which can happen with differences in settings such as Giftable or Usage Display. But while the plan differences might not be visible, the button that allows John to go through the exchange process does become enabled, which is a cue that there are differences.

Because the differences between John's current plan and the catalog's current plan are all compatible and insignificant:

John's carousel view of his plan is updated (as if he currently has the Messaging 200 plan).
John's current subscriptions view remains unchanged (because so far he is still keeping his current plan).
John can exchange his Text 200 for the Messaging 100, Messaging 200, or Messaging 300 plan. (John can exchange for the Messaging 200 plan because the difference now lets him proceed through the exchange flow and get the new catalog version.)

Example 3

When the difference between a customer's current plan and the catalog version of the plan is compatible and significant, the carousel experience differs.

For this example, we use our original configuration as the baseline, and John's current plan is the Text 200 plan.

Text 100

Text 200

Text 300

You're taking the changes to your catalog from example 2 further. Not only are you changing the name of your plans, you're changing the description to better explain what your customers get with the plan. Description is in the compatible and significant classification. John's carousel view is now:

Messaging 100

Text 200

Messaging 200

Messaging 300

The difference between John's current version of the plan and the catalog's version of the plan is compatible and significant. It's like you deleted the Text 200 plan and replaced it with the Messaging 200 plan. Because John's plan is "grandfathered," that is, he gets to keep his version of it until it is canceled, he sees both his version and the current catalog version in the carousel. When John views the carousel, he sees a "Grandfathered Plan" message.

John can still exchange for any other plan. However, if he does, his current plan becomes no longer available to him because it is no longer offered in the catalog:

John exchanged for the Messaging 300 plan, making it his current plan. His former plan, now no longer offered, is no longer seen in his carousel view.
Messaging 100	Messaging 200	Messaging 300

Example 4

In the following examples, there are 3 exchange categories. The baseline one as illustrated above, and then one for voice that contains

Voice 100, a 100 minute voice plan for $1.00
Voice 200, a 200 minute voice plan for $2.00
Voice 300, a 300 minute voice plan for $3.00

and one for data that contains

Data 10, a 10MB data plan for $1.00
Data 20, a 20MB data plan for $2.00
Data 30, a 30MB data plan for $3.00

Mary has the Voice 100, Text 200, and Data 30 plans. Mary's carousel view:

Voice 100	Voice 200	Voice 300
Text 100	Text 200	Text 300
Data 10	Data 20	Data 30

Like in example 3 above, you make changes to the messaging plans. You also want to emphasize the high-speed capability of your network, so you change the names of the data plans.

The difference between Mary's current Text 200 plan and the catalog version of the plan is compatible and significant (Description is in the compatible/significant classification).
The difference between Mary's current Data 30 plan and the catalog version of the plan is compatible and insignificant (Name is in the compatible and insignificant classification).

Mary decides that she needs more voice minutes and fewer messages, so she goes into the carousel to exchange plans. She now gets a message that one of her plans has changed, and she sees this:

A significant change made to a plan a customer has results in a "new" plan being added to the carousel.
Voice 100	Voice 200		Voice 300
Messaging 100	Text 200	Messaging 200	Messaging 300
High Speed Data 10	High Speed Data 20		High Speed Data 30

Similar to example 3, because her current Text 200 plan is grandfathered as long as she wants to keep it, it also appears in the carousel. She selects a new voice plan. The carousel will now look like this:

Voice 100	Voice 200		Voice 300
Messaging 100	Text 200	Messaging 200	Messaging 300
High Speed Data 10	High Speed Data 20		High Speed Data 30

Mary then selects the smaller messaging plan. When she completes the exchange process, the carousel will look like this:

Voice 100	Voice 200	Voice 300
Messaging 100	Messaging 200	Messaging 300
High Speed Data 10	High Speed Data 20	High Speed Data 30

Note two things:

Because she completed the exchange process, she also got the new catalog version of her data plan.
The Text 200 plan has gone away!

This illustrates a fundamental principle: Once you change a product, the product in its original version is no longer available to be received by a customer. It is as if you created a new, nearly identical product and deleted the old one. And the only way a customer can still see that old product is if they still have it as a current product. (And if it is a recurring product, they get to "grandfather" the "old" version until they specifically cancel the renewal.)