Background:
In the development of Engagements, my responsibilities encompassed facilitating health plans in effectively engaging members through various channels—phone calls, mailers, text messages, and push notifications. Specifically tailored for large health plans with 25,000 or more members, the initiative aimed to pinpoint non-engaging members and implement targeted campaigns to re-engage those unresponsive to conventional communication methods.
Thoughts:
The success of health plans, measured by star levels, relies on members completing essential health actions, directly influencing government income. A decline in star ratings not only impacts financials but also deters potential members, resulting in financial setbacks.
Role:
Product and Visual Designer
I conducted interviews with internal stakeholders, collaborating closely with Zach (co-product designer). Our focus shifted towards stakeholders and planning leaders possessing extensive domain knowledge.
Product Scope and Impact:
For healthcare plans, diversifying communication methods is crucial. Currently limited to email notifications, the system fails to engage members with full inboxes or incorrect contact details. Enhancements allow plans to connect via phone, mail, text, or push notification, promoting member engagement and action.
User Benefit:
With aging often comes health complications, making prioritizing well-being crucial. Receiving reminders for preventative health actions like breast or colorectal cancer screenings can be life-saving.
Medicare plan members from various insurance health plans.
Discovery and Research
The team collectively acknowledged challenges in engaging unresponsive plan members, leading us to prioritize user needs and address requirements incrementally.
Project Goals:
01. Identify the most effective method of communication for member engagement based on open/click rates.
02. Understand plan leaders' pain points when engaging members.
03. Comprehend customer support representatives' challenges in member engagement.
04. Investigate plan members' interactions and responses to email notifications, considering preferred communication channels.
Market Research:
I conducted market research to familiarize myself with campaigns and the automated marketing industry. Notable companies like Mailchimp and Sendgrid emerged, with Sendgrid's API chosen for our project.
Competitive Analysis:
I performed a competitive analysis focusing on Mailchimp and Sendgrid, uncovering insights such as template options for users to design or choose from a pre-designed list. This analysis informed the core features considered for implementation on Engagements.
Interviews: Plan Leaders and Internal Stakeholders
Due to compliance issues, health plan member interviews were not feasible. To address this, we opted to interview internal stakeholders and plan leaders.
Assumptions:
Mailers: Consider mailers as an alternative for plan members unable to receive emails.
Insights:
Plan members received 1 to 4 lengthy emails daily, leading to member abrasion and low NPS scores. Risk Manager data inaccuracies resulted in some members not receiving notifications. Certain members preferred health action mailers over emails, despite already receiving gift card mailers for completing health actions.
Needs:
01. Automated Filter Capability: Develop engagements with the ability to filter plan members, considering their interaction history.
02. Email / Phone Number Validation: Explore APIs for filtering misspelled emails and phone numbers. Implement a backup communication method if the initial one fails.
03. Preferred Communication Method: Enhance engagements to highlight customers' preferred and secondary communication methods.
Visual and Interaction Design
Utilizing our established pattern library from Engagements, we directed the visual design for the project. To ensure comprehensive features, we tested Mailchimp’s and SendGrid’s campaign creation functionalities, considering the non-tech-savvy nature of plan leaders.
Key Design Queries:
Enhancing engagement through design.
Simplifying a complex process for non-tech-savvy users.
Establishing metrics for engagement success and failures.
Addressing the visual and interaction challenge with Engagements, our focus was on creating a visually simple tool with advanced features. The primary user base, customer support representatives, comprised 40% tech-savvy individuals and 60% non-tech-savvy.
Balancing Experience & Complexity:
Engagements presented intriguing challenges, notably in delivering a detailed yet visually unintrusive and navigable experience.
Design Features
In a time-sensitive era, Uber prioritizes efficient and serene pickups, giving back your time. The platform makes safety-centric decisions, providing clear and actionable notifications.
Engagement Curve:
The curve enables leaders and analysts to gauge campaign success, categorizing plan members into 7 tiers from least to most engaged.
Using curve data, leaders and analysts craft tailored campaigns to re-engage specific plan members.
Engagement Curve > Change Direction:
Change direction reveals members regressing in health habits, allowing leaders to include them in new re-engagement campaigns.
Templates:
Recognizing the need for template flexibility, we implemented the ability to create, store, and fully customize templates as required.
Shipment Update
After my 7-month involvement in the project, the team refined the visual design further. Although not part of the subsequent stages, it was satisfying to witness the realization of most of my contributions.
Impact Assessment:
Engagements was successfully launched in December 2019. Feedback from former colleagues indicates positive reception. While Engagements effectively engages and empowers plan members to act, there are observed challenges during the transition from informed to motivated states.
Looking Back and Learnings
Reflecting on the project, I recognize opportunities for improvement in our research approach. I aim to engage a more diverse group of plan leaders and analysts from various healthcare companies for comprehensive insights. Additionally, restructuring user testing based on permissions for Engagements would enhance feedback collection from multiple user perspectives.