Creating a guided flow to help small business owners through a services selection process

Context

A large insurance company serviced many small business owners, but their sign-up process primarily happened over the phone. The business knew they wanted to create an online process for "DIY" customers to complete the process on their own through a simple system that used plain language. They were just completing a lengthy customer research phase, so behaviors, personas and pain points had already been identified.

Challenge

The company wanted to envision both a near-term and future-term solution for all customers, but keeping in mind one customer persona in particular that they felt had specific needs.

Approach

Using pre-determined pain points, we mapped out a high-level customer journey map for their current state solution, discerning between the needs of different personas. While it was obvious which section of the journey to solution, we took time as a group to brainstorm solution ideas (or "design requirements") for the pain points that received the highest number of votes. This helped guide the sketching process, which resulted in two prototypes – one implementable in the short term, and a second for a more intelligent system representing an imagined future state that incorporated AI.

Outcome

After testing with users matching the target persona, we got clear validation of the overall process, and learned which areas needed more explanation or human intervention. We also validated that our second prototype would be well-received in future.