- Principle #1: Give Them Money and Let Them Shop
- Principle #2: Provide True Price Transparency
- Principle #3: Provide Meaningful Choice
- Principle #4: Offer Guidance in the Form of Decision Support
- Principle #5: Optimize the Shopping Experience
- Principle #6: Ensure a Cultural Fit Within the Organization
- Principle #7: Refine, Iterate, and Improve
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Principle #5: Optimize the Shopping Experience
In addition to having the right products and the right guidance, a benefits marketplace should have an optimal design to make it easy and familiar for people to shop for and buy products. What optimizes shopping in a store? For one thing, support. Zappos offers free returns on all shoe purchases, so users are free to try a few different sizes, knowing they can send back whatever doesn’t fit. Trader Joe’s has plenty of “crew members” around its grocery stores to return something to the shelf while you’re shopping or get something you may have forgotten in a different aisle. Having a sharp focus on the customer experience in a benefits marketplace is essential because the process is new, and product knowledge is often limited.
Just as in a retail environment, optimal experiences in an online benefits marketplace can be made smart, simple, and relevant when the needs of the customer (or employee) are prioritized.
Whether your favorite store is Trader Joe’s, Zappos, or Home Depot, you know what a great customer and transactional experience feels like. These markets work because their fundamentals are sound. Private exchanges have the potential to provide such experiences as well.
ENSURING A GREAT SHOPPING EXPERIENCE IN AN EXCHANGE ENVIRONMENT: A GLIMPSE BEHIND LIAZON’S CURTAIN
Liazon’s principles for enabling an optimal shopping experience include universal design, metrics-based iteration, and a climate of innovation.
Universal Design
Liazon’s process for creating the optimal experience starts with understanding people. Everyone, regardless of ability, should experience our interface in a way that is engaging, simple, and intuitive (see Figure 1.6). Our research indicates that people have varied experiences buying benefits and shopping online. Some people are familiar with benefits, while others need more guidance. Some are frequent online shoppers, while others may face technical challenges or shop using screen readers or other assistive devices. Understanding the specific users is the basis of Liazon’s “user personas,” or representations, of both novice and experienced shoppers. Using personas, Liazon can outline the various paths a person might take toward purchase, using a “journey map.” User personas and journey maps are tools Liazon uses to empathize, streamline complex tasks, and seek areas to create delight. These tools are the foundation for an inclusive experience.
Universal design also involves considering a multitude of devices and technologies. People often switch between devices, choosing to start an experience on a smartphone, for instance, and then switch to a tablet or another device. It’s important for familiarity and consistency to be maintained across devices to ground people in their experience. Liazon ensures that the benefits shopping experience is not only consistent, but exceptional, across devices.
Choosing benefits is an important decision that takes time and careful consideration. However, people want to move through the process quickly. The complexities of benefits and insurance shouldn’t hinder the shopping process. We constantly strive to offer a streamlined experience, with helpful information and engaging interactions to guide customers through the process. The experience is reminiscent of other online shopping experiences, down to the universal shopping cart icon and an easy way to review what’s in the cart.
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Figure 1.6 The Simplified User Interface on Liazon Exchanges.
Metrics-Based Iteration
Liazon’s user personas are created based on quantitative and qualitative metrics that are also the driving force behind continuous improvements to the shopping experience. These metrics provide a complete understanding of customer interactions and help us identify possibilities for product innovation. For example, we observed users interacting with the Liazon system and noted that username recovery and password resetting was a pain point for consumers. Liazon combined this observation with support call data received from the employee service center to create and implement a new workflow to simplify the login process and improve the overall experience. We made usernames unique yet memorable for users and redesigned the password reset process to show and hide the password, which helps to reduce errors. This improved workflow also presented an opportunity for us to enhance the security of user information. These small innovations led to a more positive user experience and decreased the number of support calls for username recovery and password reset assistance.
System analytics, employer surveys, service center call logs, online polling, benchmark studies, and one-on-one user interviews are all collected and compared against key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and report successes. If data indicate, for example, that customers are struggling to complete a task, we see an opportunity to revisit the shopping experience. This may mean reducing the number of clicks to add products to the shopping cart or simplifying complex terminology to help customers understand medical deductibles. Data are critical to understanding customers and to innovating, reviewing, and testing progress.
A Climate of Innovation
Liazon’s internal teams challenge themselves to create new experiences through usability best practices and iterative design, understanding that technology is just one part of the user experience. Innovation is a collaborative effort, and insights from the entire team drive the best changes. Client Service, Operations, and the Employee Service Center at Liazon help define customer support needs and issues. The Product team shapes the business requirements and strategy (the value of the features built), whereas the Development team outlines the best way to implement features within the system (feasibility).
Ultimately, the best user experience is one in which people can easily achieve their goals. Simple factors, such as content that’s difficult to read or icons that people don’t easily recognize, can affect how users understand the choices in front of them and can negatively impact the shopping experience. Usability best practices, combined with multiple data sources and collaboration among teams, is essential in creating an optimal benefits enrollment experience.