The brief

In August 2021, it was identified that mobile registration rates for the my Sun Life app were low for Individual Clients (not part of a workplace plan) in Canada. Not being able to connect with Clients through digital channels means that Clients don't have easy access to updates on their products and the services available to them.

Even though the team invested in campaigns promoting the benefits of digital adoption, only 16% of Individual Clients had registered. Those who hadn't registered were missing out on opportunities to engage with our digital products. This prompted the team to ask the questions:

• What barriers are Clients facing when trying to register online?
• How might we encourage registrations for our individual Clients?

The team saw an opportunity to reimagine the sign-in process for registration through the mobile app. Making it easier to register could motivate Clients to sign up. Having easier access to their products could help them opt-in to additional digital services that might be relevant to them.

Opportunity

After COVID the team saw a shift in how Individual Clients were purchasing wealth products. For Advisor-assisted purchases, 98% are now done virtually. After speaking with an advisor to determine which products are right for them, Clients use a code delivered via SMS to access and sign agreements to complete the acquisition of new products. With a change to make registration easier via mobile, we could prompt Clients to download the my Sun Life mobile app and register for ongoing access to their new products.

Digital engagement improves the Client experience. It empowers them to easily access their investments, helping them to better understand their savings. Digital access is also more efficient for giving updates to Clients compared to traditional snail mail.

Process

The Double Diamond design model shows the stages that we use within Sun Life to create new experiences.

Discover and Align

Before getting into any designing of experiences, it's important to understand the problem at hand. Investing the time and resources in research helps properly define the project. Otherwise, we risk wasting time and resources in the wrong areas, without improving the Client experience.

Define Opportunities

The team looked at CX insights, Client feedback and the current experience to create blueprints and journey maps. Mapping the client journey was a valuable step. It gave them insight to understand how we can target the right information, at the right time to our Clients.

Generate ideas

The team worked with other internal teams to conduct ideation workshops. Participants in the workshop brought expertise from areas such as:

• IT / Enterprise Architecture
• Mobile Centre of Excellence
• Individual Wealth Operations
• Dealer Best Practices
• Digital Platforms / Product
• UX

With so many different stakeholders bringing different perspectives to the table it helped to get a better idea of the Client journey and how to design an experience to meet their needs.

In the workshops, the teams mapped out the desired future-state journey for Individual Wealth Clients, including:

• The Client experience
• Pain points and opportunities for digital engagement
• Potential features to include in concept testing for mobile registration

Prototype and Test

The team created a set of low fidelity concepts based on outputs from the ideation workshop, which were tested with different target users.

The user testing gave the team valuable insight into crucial areas of improvement.

Design the experience: test, iterate, and learn

The team completed five rounds of user testing on copy and design iterations, improving upon the identified areas and fixing the pain points before releasing the product. They were able to refine the experience to something that met user needs because of the work in the prototyping and testing stage.

The final design usability score exceeded 90%.

Risks if skipped

Forgoing testing can lead to wasted time and money developing a product which has unidentified Client-facing shortcomings. Product failure, if caused by Client pain points, would go undetected until it is too late.

1/3 of the budget

The team saved ~$415k by seeking Client feedback and using it to refine requirements. Using their feedback helped them adjust the product to better meet Client needs. This contributed to reducing the cost of the project from ~$650k to ~$235k.

Build: Launch and measure

Client engagement made this project successful. The team empathized with Clients and mapped their journey through the mobile registration experience. They were able to make key discoveries that defined a path towards creating a successful experience.

The agile and Experience Design approach ensured this project finished on time, using only a third of the projected cost.

How experience design informs digital success

Client engagement made this project successful. The team empathized with Clients and mapped their journey through the mobile registration experience. They were able to make key discoveries that defined a path towards creating a successful experience.

Before

• ~16% of individual Clients have registered for digital services (vs.64% of GB)
• High print and mailing costs
• Reduced Client motivation to digitally register

After

• 175% increase in registration rates among individual Clients
• 66% decrease in the average days for new individual Clients to register for digital services (93 days > 32 days)
• 13% increase in paperless election (97% of new registrants signed up to go paperless)
• ~$415k cost reduction