Customer-facing Platform Modernization for Leading Provider of Employee Benefits Management Solutions

The Problem

The insurance industry is highly regulated, with a lot of compliance to keep in mind. Our client’s legacy employee benefits platform was dated; enormous; and packed with layers of data, disclaimers, waivers, and questions—the answers to which impacted end users’ eligibility. All of this made for a constrained and quite clunky process, which was their biggest obstacle to creating a smooth interaction with users. 

They were seeking an improved look and feel for their user experience. The platform was externally facing, so end users were interacting with something that was dated and difficult to use. Over the years, they had bolted on additional functionality as they needed it, and it ended up as a conglomerate of things that didn’t flow well, even though all of these things were necessary. They felt as though they didn’t have enough knowledge of best practices and heuristics for user experience to be able to apply them to their existing process. They knew what their users wanted—they just didn’t know how to deliver it.

They were overwhelmed and uncertain of how much they would actually be able to impact the overall outcome, and they were concerned that, because of the constraints, their ability to improve the overall process would be limited. That was their biggest concern—not just giving the platform a facelift but actually improving the functionality of it.

Results/ROI

What We Delivered

Improved functionality 

Modern, intuitive user experience

Seamless integration with the complex back-end system and processes

Effortless transfer to internal build team thanks to well-documented code that was built to be maintained

While waiting for internal team to complete build process, the client used our prototype to attract new business

Client Review

Background

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the senior vice president of strategy for a leading employee benefits provider. We are a digital technology platform providing employee benefits for employer groups. We aggregate employee benefits for employers to offer to their employees and for employees to self-serve the administration and election of their benefits.

My role is to map out the overall business strategy for the next one to three years. I make sure that we are headed in the right direction from an industry, profitability, and sustainability standpoint.

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Opportunity / Challenge

What challenge were you trying to address with Praxent?

We engaged Praxent to help us create a modern and attractive UI and UX for our employee self-serve client portals.

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Solution

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our first phase was research, and Praxent was tremendously helpful in pulling together competitive reviews, industry reviews, and information that pertains to the best practices for UI/UX. 

They did research to determine what we currently have in place and what we want our future stage to look like. We created a customer roadmap, and now we’re working on the wireframes. We’re in the process of doing internal and external interviews to get their feedback, and then we’ll have a second review.

Once we complete that, we will go from our low fidelity wireframes into a more high-fidelity wireframe, and we will add more graphics and colors. Once that is done, they will actually provide us with the design elements that we need for our internal developers to create the frontend of our backend system.

What is the team composition?

We chose them because of the team they brought to the table. It would be impossible to hire someone that has the breadth of knowledge that this team has.

We have people who are designers, project managers, interviewing specialists, research specialists, as well as best practice specialists. 

How did you come to work with Praxent?

When I was doing my research, we looked at Clutch and the top 15 UX and UI agencies in 2018. I interviewed about six vendors based on what I found on Clutch, and Praxent was head and shoulders above the others that I interviewed.

I signed an NDA with each of the six vendors, went through a discovery call, and provided them with a demo link to our site. We asked them to go through that site with no instructions or assistance from us so they would have the same experience as our end-users. 

We asked them to provide us with a presentation giving the highs and lows of what they see on the site. Praxent was by far the most thorough and most prepared.

How much have you invested in them?

We have invested around just shy of $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in August of 2019, and the work is still ongoing. We started with a 12-week research phase, and when that was up, then we started the design phase, which is projected to go through to the end of March or April. Following that, our third phase will be an ongoing upkeep phase.

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Results & Feedback

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

As far as quantitative metrics, we don’t know yet because we haven’t released our new UI/UX. I would be surprised if, in the first 12 months, we didn’t have at least a two to one ROI. 

In fact, it will likely be better than that because our UX was really bland before this. Now, it is legitimately night and day. When the UI/UX is released, it will absolutely be a completely new experience that will be worlds better.

How did Praxent perform from a project management standpoint?

I cannot say enough good things about their project management, reporting, and communication. We’ve had a great amount of input into the process, which I have really appreciated. 

As we go through the project, they make sure I’m fully aware of everything they are working on, everything that is expected of me, and all the required resource planning. 

They are believers in overcommunicating, even on sensitive things. They make sure they are bringing their expertise to the table for exactly what we have hired them to do. If I decide I need to cut a corner or take a different path, they make sure that I am thinking through all the potential risks. 

Outside of that, we have a weekly project meeting where I know exactly where I stand on the budget and completion of the project. They do a great job of making sure that there is never a question of where you are in the process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their two high points for me are the synergy and preparation they bring to the project. Their synergy as a team is fantastic — truly is exponential in comparison to others. The other impressive thing would be their preparation.

They are always prepared in advance with great detail, but also a great amount of simplicity. They are very concise in what they provide you and the direction is always very clear.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would have been helpful to have a discussion earlier in the process around systemic alignment. They work on Apple, and we work on Windows. Now that we are further along in the process, we are finding there will be a bit of a translation issue with the design elements. They are doing the work using Sketch, and we are doing it in Adobe. If we had been aware of it months ago, we might have been able to take steps to avoid that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to them when they tell you there are potential pitfalls. They have been right every time, and they have been very helpful. 

Outside of that, don’t shortchange yourself. If you are really going in on a project, go all in and get what you know you need. Fully utilize the team as a resource.

Initially, we decided on less research than our initial plans. But, after talking it through, we had decided to go with the full research method. Those 12 weeks made a huge difference for us. We felt good about the preparation we brought to the project.

Ratings