We helped one of HL’s squads create a new online pension drawdown journey that’s delivering better outcomes for its clients. Weeks after launch, during an uncertain economic environment:
Of those completing the application, clients are 83% more likely to choose partial drawdowns when using the online form, compared to those using the old paper one.
That’s a sign that the journey is prompting people to consider all of their options and better understand the benefits of partial drawdown.
The team designed comprehension checks into the journey, to help HL clients understand the impact of their decisions before they commit.
Analytics show that people are responding as intended to this positive friction, by dropping out of the application and using supporting tools to increase their understanding.
From the very start cx helped us by asking the hard questions, challenging our assumptions and preconceptions - mapping our customer journeys to fully understand the challenges and opportunities. They quickly became a valuable part of the team, and helped us build and embed capabilities within our own teams – leading to a great outcome for us and our clients
It’s hard to trust others to solve problems you’re accountable for fixing. The higher the stakes, and the clearer the accountability, the harder delegation becomes. You may have felt something similar yourself.
The trap here is that the knottier the problem, the more likely you are to prescribe the wrong solution – because you probably don’t have all of the necessary information.
But the key to delegation is really just confidence. And in this situation there’s a surprisingly simple way to get hold of the stuff: first-hand exposure to user research.
The project’s sponsors had joined the squad to observe discovery research that exposed the range of needs, emotions and questions that arise in people approaching retirement.
The experience map that emerged revealed unexpected insights, and built a shared understanding of the important problems to solve.
Getting that research right built alignment and momentum, says Senior Product Manager, Stuart East: "It really started to drive understanding across the business. It tied it all together.”
And importantly, it showed how an iterative, user-centred approach could lead HL methodically towards an effective online journey and supporting service. “The experience map helped people from marketing, helpdesk and ops to understand clients’ pain points and realise how they could contribute.” says Stuart.
"It takes a skilled researcher to ask the right questions but that's only half the job. It's equally important to make sense of the data, and distil it into something that others can understand." Stuart East,
Senior Product Owner, Hargreaves Lansdown
Confidence was growing, but we still needed to address the ‘too easy’ problem. You can understand the concern – ever had a great experience while managing to make a regrettable decision?
When designing essential services, transient experience comes second to – in regulatory parlance – ‘good outcomes’. Success metrics should represent the ownership and use of the product, the value derived from it, not just how painless it is to buy.
Helping consumers to achieve their financial objectives can mean doing things that seem counterintuitive. Is slowing people down ‘good UX’? Sometimes, yes.
Usability testing helped our joint team to design a flow that felt intuitive to use and matched client expectations. But crucially, we introduced positive friction to slow people down at key moments.
We added comprehension checks that require users to reflect on whether they really understand the impact of the decisions they’re making. Rather than overwhelming users with ‘educational’ information and adding pressure to the decision, these just-in-time prompts nudge people out of the application flow to can consider things at their own pace. To help, the journey highlights a set of supporting tools that clients can use to explore their own needs and better understand the options available.
It focuses the mind, I know things now that I didn’t know before
I like that it challenges you to check you’ve done the right thing
When we tested these designs with users, fears about the digital perils of ease and convenience subsided. We could see that these techniques would help people make considered decisions.
While HL's primary focus was getting the right outcomes for clients, they feared that making clients think would result in extra load on their operations team. But the results speak for themselves:
What was a particularly painful process for both clients and Helpdesk agents, is now a clean and simple journey that will lead to better conversations, greatly reduced call times and improved colleague NPS
Instead of focusing on transient experiences, let's design for longer-term outcomes.
Drop us a line: stu.charlton@cxpartners.co.uk
