Improving claims experiences through experimentation and co-design.
Client:
Anonymous (NDA)
Sector:
Financial services
Category:
Research and design
Facilitation and capacity building
The Challenge
My client, the claims department of a local business unit of a global insurance provider, in line with the Group’s mandate, was on a mission to pursue customer experience and operational excellence across its claims services.
For this reason, they reached out to me as an internal design and innovation specialist, with the desire to discover how they could deliver unique claims management experiences for their customers in agile ways.
The Approach
To respond to their challenge, I adopted these principles to frame my work: lean on design and experimentation methods, work on real cases, start small, prove it works, and build capacity. This resulted in a phased approach to delivery that involved:
Phase 1: identification of an opportunity to improve a subset of their motor claims experience and delivery of improvements as service design lead with shadowing from claims department colleagues. This included interviews with customers who recently went through a claim, observations of claims handlers, the definition of the target-to-be experience, design, and delivery of live experiments for testing, and the creation of a case study for internal share-backs.
Phase 2: incubation of an internal Claims Innovation Lab to mimic what was done in the first phase but where department staff played a key role in the design and delivery of experiments to seize two other business opportunities to improve both motor and property claims experiences. This implied a shift in my role from lead to coach and facilitator, and the delivery of trainings intertwined with workshops, and ongoing mentoring and support to local staff for the delivery of the projects.
"As Project Lead, Olga guided us through a practical process based on service design and experimentation, which allowed us to address major business challenges. Her approach included customer interviews, claims handler observations, and live experiments that helped us validate our assumptions before implementing any improvements. This made us more agile and efficient and resulted in significant enhancements in customer and internal operations. Olga also played a crucial role in empowering our team to be co-designers of the improved experiences. Thanks to her leadership, we quickly implemented improvements at minimal cost, achieving a considerable increase in customer satisfaction. Her collaborative approach delivered tangible value and sparked a cultural shift within the organization. I am very pleased with her contribution, which became a reference within the Group."
— Project Sponsor
The Outcomes
The project resulted in success across many fronts. First, the experiments run to tackle 2 out of the 3 business challenges brought great results for customers and operations. This enabled us to validate assumptions and build a case for implementation. By the end of the project, the department had started to lay out a plan for gradual integration of the solutions through an MVP. Second, the participatory approach focused on empowering staff - from strategy to call center functions - to be co-designers of the improved experiences had a very positive impact on employees and served as a seed for cultural change inside the organization. This, combined with the business value delivered through the challenges, led to the decision to keep the Claims Innovation Lab. Post-project, multiple share-backs were made across the organization. This became a reference case study at the Group level and influenced the push to further invest in nurturing a growth and customer-centric mindset based on design and agile methods.