So how does Adobe technology enable an experience economy around car and auto insurance for example ?
In a previous post, I talked about some of the disruptions that are occuring in the car/auto insurance marketplace, with comparison websites commoditising those who choose to deal directly with their customers online. And at the same time, as more and more of these comparision websites emerge and commoditise the very experience they had built upon insurance products, I asked whether perhaps there was an opportunity to gain ground by differentiating on the customer-centricity of the quote and buy insurance experience, and whether that opportunity presents itself equally to comparison sites and direct sites alike.
Let's consider some of the recurring frustrations in the online insurance marketplace; and as you read these, recognise that many of these problems recur as wolves in sheep's clothing elsewhere in other industries. It's a recurring problem for which a common solution emerges.
Improving the Data Capture Experience
The first step in any insurance purchase, is to collect a quote. Unfortunately, in order to quote a policy, we must give almost as much information as would be required to purchase the policy - indeed it's this very inefficiency upon which the innovation of comparison websites has really emerged. The comparison is part of the benefit; but not having to tediously enter the same or similar information across numerous sites is also a tremendous reason for uptake.
Though I can't recall and cite the source, a statistic I have often used and validated, is that the typical online insurance application from in the UK is between 9 and 11 pages. Furthermore - and more worryingly - users abandon the process at a rate of 5% per page. You can extrapolate yourself to see that abandonment rates of 40-50% would not be unreasonable for an online application.
Replacing Multiple Pages with Single Screen Forms
There are many reasons for such abandonment rates; most are associated with the frustrations of a page-based and page-refreshing application. Replacing multi-page web forms with single-screen offer a number of untold benefits. We can create form-based experiences that allow more natural navigation back and forth between screens, without forcing a page refresh back to the server.
Though you might think it's cheating a little to suggest these applications are "single-screen", effective use of choreography (a key UX principle we apply often is that "motion has meaning") in the application can bring the appropriate parts of the form into focus.
Adobe LiveCycle ES offers a feature known as "Form Guides", which allow us to render these guided data capture experiences as views onto a PDF form. A PDF form may look like the paper form that needs to be pushed around and archived within an organisation for compliance, but a Form Guide can ensure there is a 1:1 mapping between data required in the PDF form and data captured in the more effective RIA experience.
In part 3 of this post, I'll talk more about the benefits of that data being captured into a PDF form, even if the data capture mechanism is an RIA.
More Innovative Approaches to Data Capture
In addition to removing some of the page-based frustrations, leveraging an RIA affords a more innovative approach to actually capturing some data. Consider for a second that you were making a claim against an accident in your car, and you were being asked to complete a text box describing how the accident happened, where it happened, where the other car came from, etc.
That's a tough ask of a user with a text-box; however if we consider that traffic police do a very good job of describing how an accident occured, not by writing about the accident but by sketching the accident. This is an innovative insight that leads to a more innovative data capture experience:
What you now see above is a form-guide experience where we can navigate between the different "panels" for the policy details, our driver information, and then provide this more innovative panel for sketching the accident. It took me seconds to position these cars and the point of impact, having chosen the road and the accident type, and the number of vehicles (key information that needs to be captured) from the drop-downs. This sketch can then be dropped into the PDF of the claim form as an image snapshot, with the picture accurately and unambiguously telling those otherwise 1000 inaccurate and ambiguous words.
More Innovative Approaches to Configuring your Quote
As we observe users get a quote for their car insurance, there is a very common pattern that emerges - having obtained a quote, there's a period of "what if" configuration that occurs.
"What if I add a voluntary excess on my policy ?". "How much extra would it be if I added protection for my car stereo ?". "What can I do to bring the premium below £400 a year ?"
With a richer user-experience, irrespective of the envelope of data that needs to be posted back to the server to get a quote, we can make the appropriate requests back to the server for every option that the user change. Let them change their voluntary excess, and give direct feedback on the price. Let them add car stereo protection, and update the price. Or even toggle a few of these options on the user's behalf, and offer them the quote they asked for, a cheaper quote if they remove something, or upsell to a more expensive quote by adding some additional protection. This user-experience concept of "direct and immediate feedback" provides a sense of responsiveness and feedback, as well as a comforting sense that the application is in service of the user, and not vice versa.
Rich Internet Applications have already shown themselves to be an excellent medium for product configurators - think about Nike ID, Harley Davidson or Volkswagen UK for instance. These are all excellent and proven examples of creating a more engaging experience by which someone can tailor the product that they want - and previously published research already measures for us that there is an ROI attached to this kind of investment in RIA.
Summary
So capture as little information as possible, capture that information as elegantly as possible for the consumer, quickly get the consumer to a configuration experience that helps them quickly, easily and enjoyably find a quote that matches their goals and aspirations and then make the process of completing that quote as streamlined as possible.
Now don't get me wrong, this is just the "on the glass" experience -- there are all manner of opportunities to followup a more useful, usable and desirable experience on the glass with the kind of horrendous customer service that has consumers back on the phones, back in the branch, or back in the welcoming arms of a competitor.
In my next post, I'll consider some of what can be done behind the glass to improve the overall "customer onboarding" experience. But most importantly, by understanding the goals and aspirations of users, by recognising Rich Internet Applications as an enabling technology for creating more user-centric applications, there is a significant opportunity to differentiate in a crowded marketplace, to move the process of shopping for insurance from a service economy to an experience economy.
Are there any tedious data capture experiences that you've seen solved more elegantly and effectively with richer user-interactions ? Trying to apply for a product or service ? Trying to book a flight or a hotel, or hire a car or purchase tickets at the theater ? Where have you seen innovation in the experiences of data capture ?
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