Date
October 2019
My Role
Product designer
Timeframe
unspecified
Tools used
Zoom, Miro (white boarding software), Sketch
Project & outcome
Here’s the TL;DR….
This was a collaboration with IBU’s Product Manager in conducting interviews with customers of one of the companies travel brands and then analysing the data to create user personas to reflect the brands users and desired users and identify marketing opportunities.
In conducting and analysing user interviews and gathering key data I was able to produce four user personas for travel insurance customers. This was then shared company wide and served as a useful tool in helping the team to relate to how their part in the business related to these customers
What problems are we trying to solve?
We want to direct brand, sales and marketing towards the right market
To constantly improve customer service and features from sights and direct feedback
To allow everybody to have a mental picture of our target audience to help them relate to their input into the business (the personas in particular helped me to motivate the dev team to understand why certain projects were set/prioritised)
What outcomes do we want?
Adequate data to use for analysis of the market
Our own set of user personas
Feedback & insights to improve our brand
Insight into competitors offerings
Challenges
Contacting and securing a suitable range of customers to interview and ensuring that the best questions were asked in order to capture the most valuable data
The interviews
After several iterations we settled on the these points for discussion:
“What is your age, occupation, and who would you normally travel with?”
“Tell us about the types of trips you take and how often do you travel?”
“Tell us about your research habits when it comes to booking your trip and choosing insurance...”
“Can you tell us about any specific needs you need your policy to cover?”
“Tell us about your pain points when purchasing insurance or making claims...”
“Tell us more about your claims history and how was your experience?”
“Tell us about your purchase habits. Do you leave everything until the last minute?”
Although we limited interviews to one hour, we encouraged each interviewee to tell their anecdotes and discuss their trips while we shared our screen with them using Miro whiteboard software to record notes. We wanted to keep the customer engaged and demonstrate our interest.
Analysing the data
As a starting point I referred to our interview notes and created a rough spreadsheet of each interview’s content as a memory refresher as we worked through the data.
We collaborated and created a seperate Miro board as a base to group and analyse data
A snapshot of one of our data groupings
Next we identified the most valuable data collected so that we could group our interviewees into four categories in order to create 4 personas relating to four potential target audiences
I then created the four user personas and shared with the rest of the company in an effort to create a visual picture of our target audience
Persona A
The insurance savvy persona who researches and looks for the best deal in every purchase. They read PDS and will make sure that their needs are covered by their policy.
The ideal customer and our ultimate desired target market
Opportunities identified:
- offer loyalty emails with specialised content, discounts and deals
- ensure brands are featured on comparison sites
Persona B
The loyal persona. Will research deals but ultimately return to the insurer they have used in the past.
This is the secondary target market and we should strive to provide the best service to ensure that these customer remain loyal
Opportunities identified:
- offer discounts to existing customers to ensure customer retention
Persona C
The “easily influenced” customer. Will purchase insurance based on the opinions of others. This is a tertiary market for opportunity. Although easily targeted, likely to make claims by not reading PDS.
Opportunities identified:
- marketing and social media
- highlight rating & reviews
- make brands known to agents
Persona D
The last minute purchaser, or leaves decisions in the hands of others. Doesn’t really care and likely to make claims. This is an undesirable customer for the brand
Project wrap up
In creating these personas, I was able to go forward into the Growth Hacking and content & social media teams more knowledgeably towards the target market and able suggest the following opportunities for discussion:
adding reviews to the home page and on google listing
inviting existing customers to leave feedback in any email communications
loyalty discount codes and offers via email for existing users
targeted content articles