Community research on health insurance customer journey

Independer.nl is a Dutch comparison site for financial products, health institutions and energy. Independer started from the ambition to make financial choices transparent. They have succeeded in this: banks and insurers have become more transparent in what they do and offer consumers options to compare products themselves. To remain relevant, Independer wants to be more than just a comparison site. But what other needs can the brand meet?

Challenge

From our experience we have learned that consumers choose the product that is relevant and the easiest to buy. For example, because it is top-of-mind, widely available, removes choice stress or feels most familiar. So we say: removing barriers is the most relevant way of adding value. The customer journey is a tool to identify thresholds and put them in context. Because precisely that context is essential to get to the real problem.

Vision

Together with Independer, we have developed a uniform community research design with which we have mapped customer journeys for the domains of mobility, care and living. In this way we answer the question of how consumers currently experience the customer journey and where and how they can be helped to realize their wishes, ambitions and needs.

Solution

Community research: from funnel to ideal customer journey

The research design consists of a 2-week program in Blauw's online community. During the 2 weeks that we go live in the community, we are in constant contact with Independer. We discuss what we have learned so far, where opportunities lie and what new questions this knowledge raises. The program follows a funnel: from broad exploration to focused testing.

In the first phase, the focus is on contexting. We discover what thoughts, associations and feelings a domain triggers in consumers. Science and our experience have shown that choices and customer experiences are often (unconsciously) strongly emotionally driven. At the beginning of the funnel there is a lot of room for spontaneous experience stories and thoughts. Between the lines, we recognize emotions and detect experiences and choices that are unconsciously linked. In addition to understanding the emotional experience of the consumer, from the experience stories we get a complete picture of how consumers go through the customer journey.

What steps do they go through? What do these steps look like?
How are those steps perceived? What are the highs and lows in the journey? Whether the consumer goes through all the steps of the journey
How strongly one experienced various basic emotions in each step How strongly each threshold was recognized
Which barriers have the highest priority to be removed To what extent Independer is seen as a credible party to remove these barriers.

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Result

Prioritizing opportunities and actions

Halfway through the research, we organize an analysis session in which we outline the customer journey and identify thresholds. These insights are coordinated with Independer. Then the second part of the research starts: the targeted testing of insights. This is how we test:
Finally, together with Independer, we organize an action-oriented workshop in which we bring the customer journey to life and discuss how Independer can act on the insights from the community so that they can take concrete follow-up steps.