Problem
A design concept of an interface to help customers talk about insurance in the way they think about their health care rather than forcing them into thinking about insurance the way that providers see their products. Outcome is greater customer engagement and longer term relationships.
An eHealth Sales Agent
I sat in a large number of calls at the call center and saw this happen over and over again. And as the customer gave up telling their story and got in line with the game, they became less excited and less interested in the process.
I could hear them disengaging.
They did get through the agents questions though, and an application was submitted. Money was made but only once. Data showed it was doubtful the customer would remember the agent's company the next time they needed insurance.
And worse, judging from their tone of customer's voice at the end, they finished the call thinking that buying health insurance is a baffling and complex process that they won’t ever really understand.
Solution
What if enrolling in an insurance plan was more like having a conversation with a friend over coffee?
I imagined one person is telling a story and the other person asking questions and offering their own thoughts along the way. Wouldn't that be great?
It would make key brand attributes come to life.
We'd actually be Helpful and Friendly along with being Authoritative and Masters of The Insurance Universe, or whatever is listed in the key words for the brand.
We'd create an enduring relationship with the customer.
So I did the following.
I created an product has three interfaces or layers:
• Conversation layer
• Text Layer
• Form Layer
Through the Conversation Layer, a second agent, the Coaching Agent, would coach the Sales Agent on the phone. AI would also be listening in using sentiment analysis tools to analyze the emotions of both the sales agent and the customer. Via meters in the Conversation Layer, the agents would know when either the Customer or Sales Agent was becoming testy or excited. And the text layer would show exactly where.
This is a wire frame. Not pretty. But got the message across.
The Text Layer uses natural language processing (NLP) to capture the conversation in a real-time text flow. The primary purpose is to help the coaching agent see information that might have been over-looked. The Conversation Layer and Form Layer are panels over the Text Layer which can be slid to the side for a full view of the Text Layer
The Form Layer allows the coaching agent or the sales agent to pull in information as it appears in the conversation and put it into the provider's enrollment form.
What is truly innovative in this tool is the design for the drag and drop field.
Rather than the Coaching Agent seeing a word or praphase they want in a moving stream of words, having to highlight it and then paste it back into the relevant field, they can quickly drag the field itself over the word or phrase they want and drop it. The AI in the app will know what to grab and automatically populate the form field. This solution is not only several times faster than copying and pasting out of a text stream, but the speed at which this is done allows the Coaching Agent to quickly catch up to the conversation between the customer and the Sales Agent. You can see this working in the video below.
The tool is now moving into refinement at eHealth. Additionally the team is considering applying for a patent.