Photo by Quaritsch Photography on Unsplash
Problem
Proposed solution
Build a CRM tool that seamlessly integrates the functionalities of the three applications, creating an enhanced, streamlined, and agent-friendly environment. This solution aims to deliver improved efficiency, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction by providing a better, more efficient, and agent-friendly experience.
My Role
Role: UX design, Visual design, User research, Design System, Interactive prototype
Tools: Figma, Photoshop, and UserZoom testing platform
Hearing the buzzword
During my discussion with the team and familiarizing myself with the application, I noticed a recurring pattern of buzzwords related to pain points, expectations, and solutions.
In order to bring clarity to the team amidst the chaos, I recognised the need for a structured approach.
The approach
It was time for me to put my UX hat on and start on the Design Thinking journey.
In order to construct an optimal solution, I was aware that I needed to take into account the three main pillars: business goals, user needs, and technical limitations. It is in the intersection of these three elements where the sweet spot known as User Experience resides.
Empathise
Empathise was all about listening and asking the right questions to gain a comprehensive understanding of Central, Admin and Zendesk and how agents use them in their day-to-day lives. It was also time to refer to the research done earlier and explore the applications on my own to get a first-hand experience. I documented all my findings on a Miro board.
Define
During the Define stage, it was crucial to analyze, filter, group, and organize information derived from the data. The affinity mapping exercise helped identify patterns of feedback and categorise them accordingly.
Given that the user base was internal, I did not allocate extensive time to defining detailed personas. Instead, I focused on identifying the various roles that agents fulfill, as well as establishing easy communication channels, such as Slack, to quickly gather information and insights through direct interaction.
The analysis helped me define the problem definition clearly:
Problem definition
How might we design a user-friendly platform empowering agents to efficiently manage the entire insurance workflow, get a unified customer view and collaborate with other agents resulting in fewer errors, faster resolutions, and happier agents delivering delightful customer experience?
Ideate
The next step involved engaging in brainstorming and ideation to explore potential design solutions, as well as constructing the information architecture and navigation upon which the design would be built.
Based on the findings, it was evident that agents frequently had to navigate between different customer profiles and focus on specific tasks such as resolving quote queries, managing policies, or processing claims that were specific to each individual customer.
Prototype
In the current workflow, the insurance support agents start their day from Zendesk by addressing tickets on a first-come-first-serve basis or based on urgency. Agents then open Central and Admin as separate browser tabs, access the relevant policy and make the requested update. Agents also add a note of the update in Central as a log, and also as a reference for other agents who might do a follow-up later. To close the ticket, the agent sends an email to the customer informing them of the update.
Following this workflow, I proposed to build a dashboard first, similar to Zendesk that gives a high-level summary of agents’ schedule for the day or week. This would help agents make an informed decision to manage their workload accordingly. This remains the same for both insurance support and claim agents.
To maximise efficiency, it would be highly effective for agents to have an integrated interface that allows them to view detailed ticket information and access customer details simultaneously. I called this the Integrated View that eliminates the need for separate interfaces or systems.
Furthermore, agents often switch between multiple customer profiles and access the insurance objects. To accommodate this, I proposed a 2-tier navigation system:
- Level 1: Switch between customer profiles, opened as tabs
- Level 2: Open multiple insurance objects for one customer as tabs
User testing + Feasibility check
I conducted 2 rounds of scenario based remote user testing with 5 agents and one round of technical feasibility checks with the development team. The insights generated were further used to update the mock-ups.
Final design
As per feedback from stakeholders, users and technical team, the mock-ups had undergone multiple iterations. Policy detail page was prioritised by the Operations and the development team.
Conclusion
The development in Angular is in progress and launched to a small team of insurance support beta testers. A Slack channel is created to capture real-time feedback/bugs and track resolutions. Here are the agent’s feedback:
| Positives | Negatives |
|---|---|
|
Overall experience is very streamlined now |
Bit busy than before but understand that this view is an integration of 3 applications |
|
Significant time reduction in updating customer policy |
|
|
All the required information is in one page |
|
|
No need to jump between different applications |
|
|
Much faster, efficient and user-friendly |
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