Designers: Jacqueline Chmura, Isabella Ramos, and Anastasia Zhyvitsa
SageSure is an insurance company that focuses on property coverage in 14 coastal states that are at a higher risk for damage caused by severe storms. Although they specialize in areas that most insurance companies would avoid, they are still able to provide cost-competitive policies to their clients. Most of their business is comprised of homeowners policies, but they also offer small business insurance in select locations.
For our capstone project, the client gave us the freedom to explore the customer portal and design, or redesign, features to improve the site for SageSure’s clients. We were granted access to the design team’s staging environment and had approximately 3 weeks to complete the project before presenting our prototype to the client and a panel of judges.
THE PROBLEM
How can we improve online interactions between users and the company to better meet customers’ needs?
To better understand how to tackle this problem, we wanted to understand more about how people currently interact with their insurance companies, and to see how other companies addressed common pain points. We approached our research process in 3 main ways:
External Research
Our external research showed some broader pain points, like:
less than half of insurance customers feel confident in their knowledge of what their policy covers. (J.D. Power)
language barriers. Data compiled from the 2019 US Census showed that the coastal markets where SageSure operates also had a high population of Spanish speakers.
accessibility. Research provided by the CDC shows that the percentage of people living with disabilities overlaps heavily with the areas that SageSure insures.
Competitive Analysis
In comparing similar insurance companies (Lemonade, Hippo, AMICA, StateFarm), we noted that there are a few key features that improve their customer experience. These features include:
accessibility tools.
explicit discounts and perks.
online services, such as getting a quote or changing policy information.
User reviews and surveys
By examining Google Reviews for SageSure and conducting our own survey of homeowners, we saw some recurring pain points and concerns that we found through our previous research. These include:
an inability to reach customer support. (However when people did reach customer support, their issues were quickly resolved resulting in a high rate of customer satisfaction.)
language barrier issues.
the majority of people surveyed were less than confident in their knowledge of their policy.
We also discovered that most people found their insurance through an independent agent, and would be more comfortable speaking with someone regarding insurance questions rather than looking for answers online.
With these insights gained from our research, we decided to focus not only on improving the overall online experience, but to add a feature that would answer the question:
How can we make it easier for homeowners to see what is covered by their policy so that they can make informed decisions?
THE PROCESS
Using the statistics from our survey, we created a persona of the average SageSure customer. We also conducted usability tests for the current customer portal to see how easy it was to find information on policy coverages. By asking people to check if the policy included hurricane protection and mapping out their user journey, we noticed that people had trouble finding out their coverages, and once they did they often second-guessed themselves and ended up going through multiple unnecessary steps to confirm.
User Persona developed with survey data and research insights
We began to construct wireframes to add features which would address our 3 major concerns:
Adding accessibility and language features to improve the overall experience of the customer portal
Improve the chat feature to be more reliable and personable so that customers can feel more comfortable reaching out through the website
Increase the visibility of policy coverages so customers can feel confident in their insurance
Our survey, which was backed up by SageSure’s internal analytics, showed that there was a even split between people accessing the customer portal either on their mobile devices or on their computers. Our team decided to focus on the desktop interface first, with the potential to further develop for mobile interfaces if time permitted. We used Figma and Balsamiq to design our wireframes.
Wireframes made using Balsamiq
Wireframes made using Figma
THE DESIGN
Utilizing SageSure’s existing style guide, we added a number of features and redesigned certain aspects of the site to better adhere to the Heuristic Principles. Below are some of the key changes we made to improve the user expereince.
Homepage
We added the word “insurance” to the hero banner of the homepage, so that new visitors to the site will understand SageSure’s mission.
Accessibility and Spanish language translation features were added across the site.
Logging In
To signify to the user that they are leaving the main site and heading to the customer portal (which has a different URL), we changed the logo for the customer portal to “MySageSure”.
EasyPay and Paperless prompts were given an option to stop appearing at every new login with the new “Don’t remind me again” button.
Finding What You Need
We included quick links and information on operating hours to the chat feature to help customers get the information they need, as well as a “Request call back” feature for those who would prefer to speak with a representative over the phone.
A search function was added in the customer portal FAQ section to help customers find answers to their questions faster.
We made the messaging feature more visible by increasing the contrast of the CTA button.
New Features
A risk assessment feature was added, giving customers a general idea of catastrophes that are common in their area so they can feel empowered to ask for any necessary additional coverage from their insurance agent.
We added an accordion menu to the overview of coverages so that customers can see an explanation of what their insurance policy covers.
SageSure Prototype in Figma
REFLECTIONS AND NEXT STEPS
Once we were finished with our prototype, we conducted usability testing with Maze to see how users interacted with both sites. We repeated our original scenario of being able to check if the policy covers hurricane protection and saw the direct success rate increase from 66.7% to 88.9%. In a second scenario, we asked user to to reach out to a customer service representative and again we saw an increase in the direct success rate from 62.5% to 71.4%. By relying on insights gained through our research we were able to quantitatively improve the user experience of the customer portal.
After our capstone presentation, the client asked us to present our findings to the larger team at SageSure. Given the short time frame of this project, there were a few features and recommendations that fell outside of our scope and we did not address. These features include implementing a messaging system within the platform to centralize communications, offering more options to look up an account when using the no-login quick pay feature, and developing more personalized responses to customer reviews. We passed these recommendations on to the client for future considerations.