2013
MetLife Annuities One-on-One
At the time of this project MetLife was spending $15M on annuity brochure production and fulfillment so they asked how we move to digital and leverage technology to reduce print costs, be more efficient, and make sales to be more effective.
The Real Problem
After some initial research we discovered there is more to this than reducing print costs; potential customers didn’t understand what their financial advisors wanted them to buy and existing annuity owners didn’t really understand what they purchased.
Our Approach
In order to combat the lack of understanding what annuities are, we created a collaborative learning tool that helps people imagine what an annuity can do for them. Working within the current process a financial advisor takes to make a successful sale, we provided supplemental content that brings annuities to life for clients. Real-life stories from current annuity holders and a tool that enables potential clients to visualize and understand their own annuity worked together to instill confidence in the product.
My Role
Served as the creative director and ux lead from concept through the first phase of the project.
Helped plan, support, and conduct research (user, concept, usability testing, etc).
Designed a tool to support the education of consumers and sales of advisors (IA, system, wireframes, userflows, etc).
Led the creative direction of the project including visuals, interactive and video production.
Oversaw project in support of client management.
Research
customer interviews
We engaged key stakeholders to better understand what they go through in planning for retirement, what the purchase journey for annuity entails, and the complicated world of investments. We conducted field interviews with potential customers, existing customers, and financial advisors to discover pain points throughout the customer journey. We also dove deep into understanding the products so that we could create a tool that helps others understand them.
Understanding Annuities
Scenario definition
Content Strategy development
concept testing
Purchasing an annuity is a big investment and shouldn't be considered lightly. There is a lot of back and forth between a financial advisor and customer so we needed to create a tool that would support every phase of an annuity purchase journey all the way through to monitoring it throughout it's lifetime. To confirm if we were on the right track with our design, we engaged customers and financial advisors again after we had conceptualized the digital tool.
