Mobile ethnography helps insurers understand digital customer behaviour

Our distribution partner, a fast-growing insurance broker in the UK called Candid, was looking to launch their very own insurance products with iptiQ. They were already market leaders in generating customer enquiries in insurance but want to transform their business model and start their own white-labelled protection line of products supported by iptiQ. To do this, they were keen to learn more about what their existing customer base would expect from their own brand life insurance product. So our customer experience specialists conducted a series of studies to gather deep insights into attitudes and perceptions about life insurance.

The study brief set up to explore the following topics, all deemed as critical to the success of the initiative: 

• What are all the steps that a customer goes through when buying life insurance, and how do customers feel at every touch point?  
• What can their brand do to stand out among long established competitors?  
• How can we make the product offering distinctive and appealing to the target audience? 

Usually, buying life insurance involves a long research and consideration phase – most of it done online - before a customer feels confident in making the purchase. So, what goes on in the minds of people when they're considering buying life insurance? What information do they need take into account? How do they decide which insurer to choose?  

This innovative research approach helped answer all of the above questions and more. Over the course of a week, we asked the customers to tell us in real time about their research journey and buying life insurance via Indeemo, a mobile ethnography^*platform. We gained a remarkable insight into people's decision making when it comes to life insurance. First up, we asked people to tell us how the topic of life insurance make them feel – by selecting a picture online. The collage below closely resembles some of the pictures that customers selected:

Fascinating, isn't it? As seen by the images of their family and children, customers understand the need for and importance of having life insurance to protect their family. However, there is also uneasiness around how complicated the process of buying life insurance is, the overwhelming amount of choice and the need for reassurance and guidance when making the decision.   

We followed up with the participants and carried out in-depth online conversations aimed to unpack some of our learnings from the ethnography stage. This way, we helped Candid to gain insights into the daily lives and considerations of people who were thinking about buying life insurance. These insights were used to inform the product and design relevant digital life insurance customer journeys for their target customers. 

From the journey map we tracked, we found that the most stressful and nerve-racking point in the journey is when they're about to make the final purchase decision.

We also identified differences in how men and women approach life insurance and the triggers that are apply for each of them. For example, men tend to prefer brands that are reliable and well established over brands that are new or unknown. Women tend to connect with brands that are approachable, relatable and give them a sense of empowerment. 

Research conducted by the Office of the Customer provided Candid with a comprehensive understanding of their target audience. The depth of invaluable customer insight was used to: 

• Create impactful advertisement campaigns for their Tom and Polly brands.
• Design online journey that reduces friction and maximises triggers to purchase.
• Update call centre agent scripts to support and reassure customers along the insurance buying process .

This is the sort of support we provide to our partners, giving each project a bespoke package of behavioural science and customer research service that helps drive success for our partners. Our partners love working with us to create the best customer experience by starting with the customer insight and building out propositions from there. Do get in touch if you would like to find out more.