Building an Ecosystem from the Ground up
Northstar Envisioning
Southern Farm Bureau Insurance
Project Background
Transforming customer and agent experiences
Southern Farm Bureau, a US-based Insurance company was looking to alleviate the friction in onboarding customers, have a seamless omni-channel experience and compete with the top players in their industry.
Indigo Slate engaged in a discovery, comprehensive audit and stakeholder research and redesign of the digital experience and marketing assets and system.
Using our unique human-desirability led approach, we provided recommendations for online user journeys, digital marketing, agent experiences considering their business viability and technology investments.
1.
Project Leadership
Human Experience Innovation (HXI) Studio
The project started with a 3-month phase A for Indigo Slate to do initial research, audits, and a very high-level solution, paving the path for a comprehensive product design. My team was in charge of strategy and design.
I also joined the leadership team including the Founder & CDO (who initially brought the contract for Phase A), Vice President, and Director of Marketing Strategy to form "Strategy & Success Team".
This is perhaps the most sophisticated project I worked on during my tenure at Indigo Slate. Working with our parent company with engineers, hiring new team members, and lots of cross-functional worked involved in the entire project.
In the meantime, I worked closely with the CDO and MarTech to form the comprehensive proposal. Through excellent delivery and building trust with the client, we successfully secured the second phase, and the real work started.
30+
Team Size
Data productivity tools not being captured in CRM
$2M+
Project
Sales intelligence tools are critical in closing deals
18
Months
Sales intelligence tools are critical in closing deals
We an initial provided user experience and marketing analysis for the SFBCIC initiative. This will include recommendations, prototypes of the agent virtual office structure, and new customers’ auto-policy digital experience.
Because of the massive change in the digital strategy and design, we needed to work with the SFB leadership to create target states for Business and Technology as well. The following, as I liked to call it, "integrated Delivery," ensured that the future state of experience design is evolved alongside the business and technologies of the client, so the transformation is real.
2.
Experience Design
Research
To provide these deliverables, it was necessary to conduct research to understand the market and competition better and gain a holistic understanding of the experience for each persona involved (customers and agents). These activities will prove our hypotheses and general assumptions, enable us to apply best practices, help us uncover opportunities and innovations, and answer fundamental questions that, in turn, will support project development and future roadmap planning.
Primary Research
METHODOLOGY : Understand the use of digital platforms during the auto quote process, agent workflow, and current experience with the customer. Understand the current web structure (six websites, one per state) and UX elements to access information. Do a heuristics test to evaluate improvements and goals.
WHO : The team, along with SFBCIC, will access credentials using the Guidewire platform, Hearsay, mobile apps and websites, and WordPress to review their various interfaces and contexts.
GOAL : This is a key step of our research that will provide our team with an in-depth understanding of the current experience of existing platforms. It will also help us understand their performance, ease of use, and possible opportunities for improvement (on both the agent and customer journeys).This will provide an understanding of what a potential virtual office could look like.
Secondary Research
Northstar Vision
Reactive Care
Proactive Care
Experiencing Pillars
Persona Research & Journey Map
We created holistic customer journey maps focusing on the quote flow moment of truth - when a company can turn a pain point into a differentiated experience. Our research found that we needed to design for ease, clarity, and trust to meet the user's needs best.
Studying Customer Experience
Digital Experience Design
The core focus of the phase B contract was a mobile quote-to-purchase experience. SFB had an outdated mobile website with several stages that had made the majority of customers give up on using it and make the insurance purchase traditionally—calling an agent and buying insurance over the phone. We initially audited their current state and reduced it to a 3-step flow. And then re-designed the entire digital experience.
Minimizing friction by a 3-step structure
Agent Virtual Office (AVO)
The AVO, or the agent's integrated dashboard, was where all the initial inquiries and applications would land. At this stage, we provided concept designs to show how the agent will see all the information and respond to the customers, and we plan to work on that in a future phase.
3.
Cross-Functional
Tasks my team performed
Persona (Customer and agent research)
Voice of customer (VOC) research to include analyses by age, gender, policy count, and other relevant data based on findings in SFBCIC policies, quotes, and other user data
Heuristics analysis for the six SFBCIC websites (one per state) and two Guidewire tools
Competitive review/audit of 10 competitor websites’ offers, brand, and messaging
Mystery shopper competitive analysis with three digital product competitors.
Tasks my team closely collaborated
Understand brand context and SFB’s current state of marketing content
A/B Testing, membership messaging on the newly designed experience
Tasks my team was informed
Google Analytics review of five participating states to include demographic, journey, and behavior patterns.
Market research to discover how SFBCIC’s customer base compares to that of the addressable market
Agent data and industry agent data
Trend Analysis and Competitive audit
