Case Study: National Life Group
Redefining the customer for a century old business.
For the first time in their 100 year history, we helped National Life Group talk to the people who own their products.
Role
Head of Design, North America - Cognizant / Insight, Strategy & Design
The problem
The company had always defined the broker/"seller" as their customer, but the life insurance and annuities industry was facing a radical disruption of selling directly to customers. The business had no understanding of the "buyer" of their products.
The solution
Working with NLG leadership, I led a team to conduct the first primary research of their "buyer" customer and created a comprehensive Customer Experience Strategy that created an understanding of their customers, the lifecycle of use over time, and a prioritized plan based on key users and opportunities.
Primary research.
We did a combination of quantitative and qualitative research, performing one-on-one interviews with 15+ people in their homes and 300+ via survey.
Customer profile / personas
Based on the primary research we created a series of customer profiles and a prioritization of key customers the business wanted to focus on.
Customer lifecycle
We mapped out a 'current state' lifecycle for each customer profile from purchasing a policy through lifetime of use.
Co-creating a vision.
We collaborated with the heads of business to identify the key opportunites and outcomes in order to create a long-term view for how the business could shift.
Defining the future.
From our work sessions, we created customer lifecycles for the future identifying key moments throughout a customer's journey over a lifetime.
Results
- The first primary research resulting in customer profiles and lifecycles to plan their new business.
- Alignment from the business on a common vision through collaboration and co-creation.
- A Customer Experience strategy to act as a north star to guide the implementation of a direct-to-consumer model.
- An actionable plan including the first step of creating a new Customer service portal.