Quote digital transformation
How might we create a digital estimate that educates customers and puts them in control with a transparent, simple and accessible experience?
The Challenge
Create an easier to understand, secure, & personalised experience for customers which increases conversions.
Customer research had shown that customers who requested an estimate on leasing a car were confused by the process and had difficulty understanding what a novated lease is and how it could benefit them. The result was low conversion and a high rate of silent abandonment.
The approach
My first step was to truly unpack the experience and complexities of leasing a car through novated leasing.
I worked with stakeholders to unpack what the business prioritized, uncovered and documented details of what was required. I created UX artefacts from task flows and wireframes through to high fidelity clickable prototypes and tested with customers both internal and external.
Determine
We aligned the core customer needs with the brand pillars (developed by marketing) to articulate UX principles. These principles became the decision framework through which we calculated desirability and ranked each potential feature one against the other.
The desirability of each potential feature was weighted against feasibility and viability as per Ideo’s 3 lenses and the MVP determined from there.
I created a detailed task flow for the overarching experience and the proposed features to understand and document the complexities of knowns and unknowns. This task flow helped get the whole project team on the same page and highlight parts of the experience that hadn’t been captured yet.
Unpack and prioritise
We gathered research completed over past years for technology and marketing, workshopped the core problems with senior stakeholders and front-line customer consultants.
Through desktop research, I analysed UX patterns of both competitor products and more common products of similar complexity i.e. phone contracts, healthcare, insurance.
I became intimately familiar with the product and processes to identify and tackle the ignored and most stubborn problems.
Design, test, iterate
By aligning the design of this incredibly complex and confusing product to existing mental models and UX patterns we were able to shortcut initial designs to get to the prototype stage faster.
I started out with low fidelity paper prototypes which I tested with internal stakeholders unfamiliar with the project. We tested with customers, starting with navigation.
Because I was designing concurrently with build, I had to move through section by section, getting to handover stage quickly. I worked closely with the BA to keep on top of requirements and what was possible with the technology stack we were using.
A quick of the complexity of this product made testing with a prototype challenge. Without real data that reflected the participant's actual income and vehicle preference, we were essentailly asking the customer to hypothesis what they would do(which of course people are terrible at).
The solution was to make the process as close to reality as possible:
- We asked for the participant's name and income so we could set up bespoke prototypes ahead of time
- We set up a mock sales call with a real consultant
- Participants were able to call the consultant with any questions about their quote.
The outcome of this testing was a substantial boost in the confidence in our design and the achieving of our aims. We saw participants’ true reaction to the digital quote, rather than having to rely on a self account.
The outcome
This is the most exciting change I’ve seen for this product in 8 years.
- Transformation Lead, Office of the CEO
Stage one MVP designs were completed and endorsed for the pilot. Many potential features are documented in the backlog to bring into consideration along with the learnings taken from the initial pilot.
Without a doubt, this outcome is leaps and bounds beyond the old painful experience
