Reducing Groupnet Call Volume

Stef Donovan
Sep 10, 2019
4 min read

Updated: Mar 10, 2022

Project background

Groupnet is Great-West Life's health and dental benefit platform for plan members (customers with benefits) to make claims and see their balances. In early 2019 our old Groupnet platform was retired which required hundreds of thousands of users to sign up with the new Groupnet. During this time of transition from one platform to another, our call centre volumes soared with registration and login issues. This next three months were spent investigating into what changes we could implement to reduce our call volume, but also reduce our customer's pain.

Skills used

Problem-solving
User flows
Wire-framing

Tools used

Sketch
Zeplin

Defining the problem

We wanted to really understand the problems that we were trying to solve for so we sat in on 119 calls to record our customer's problems, the errors that they received, their actions, and our customer service rep's resolution to their issue. Grouped by issues down to their root cause, we identified three significant areas that are problematic for our customer: Sign in, Account Linking, and Account Registration.

Call volume breakdown

38.6% of calls were related to sign in issues including forgetting and/or incorrect user name and password
15.97% of calls were related to account linking issues including needing plan number and ID for account linking, or correct data (postal code, etc)
22.69% of calls were related to registration issues including not being registered on the new GroupNet site, but have lost access to the old site

Identifying Key User Issues

I looked at the existing screen flow by taking screenshots of the current process for the following scenarios: registration, sign in, and account linking. After having a good understanding of the current screen experience, I consulted with back-end developers, security, and product owners to have a better understanding of what information is necessary from our users.

4 issues with the current flow

Confusing Account Process and Little Understanding Users were given very little information about what they were suppose to do prior to being asked to register. The current flow asked our users to create an account and verify their email, but wasn't clear that they had to log back in to link their account and complete their registration. This lead to: accounts being created that weren't linked, users forgetting their login credentials, and user trying to re-create an account when they already had one.
We didn't prepare our users In order for our members to successfully create and link their accounts, they needed to have or know of their plan number and plan member Id. This information is what allowed us to link their email address to their existing plans. Members were creating their accounts but abandoning half-way through the process because they didn't have this information ready.
No help Information visible The current help information section for GroupNet was found on the Great West Life corporate site and could only be found by a hidden behind a hyperlink on the GroupNet sign in page, or by searching for help on the corporate site. Most of the problems in which customers are calling into our call centre for help with is something that they can do themselves at home. What we found was that only about 4% of our users were finding this hyperlink, and so most people were calling for help instead of trying to fix their problems themselves.
Our Error Messages weren't helpful Most of our error messages did a good job of explaining what went wrong, but they didn't do a great job of helping our users to solve their issues. Instead, error messages were directing our users to the call centre number to request help. We fixed this by providing more accurate errors at the right time, by informing our users of what went wrong, and by enabling them with the tools to find their solution. We did this by linking our user's to the next step or the right place to complete a task within the error message. We also provided an error number so our call centre representatives can more easily identify and assist with the issue our customer is facing.

User flows

After identifying key areas to improve the user experience, I created a user flow that would help us to create a less confusing experience for our users, and reduce the volume of calls to our call centre. I mostly focused on improving the sign in process and the registration process, as that was where 38% & 22% of calls were related to when customers called in with issues.

Sign in Improvements

Users that have not linked their account or verified their email are now prompted to
Better error messaging for users who enter an old GroupNet username rather than email address
Help Centre topics on same page as sign in for direct access to any assistance with signing in
Password requirements changes to allow recent passwords, and fewer requirements

Registration Improvements

Email sent to members is more clear about what the user has to do to register their account
A new landing page that includes help content that informs users on how to register for GroupNet
Call to action on the landing page to get members who haven't already to sign up
1 step account creation and account linking rather than 2 steps
Inform users that they need their benefits card or information prior to completion
Inform users of the steps to complete their registration & progress bar
Email verification informs the user to finish setting up their account
Better error messages to inform users on how to fix their problem if one should occur
Less repetitive form with fewer field requirements

Wireframes

Our company's process for handing off designs to development and business is by creating high fidelity responsive wireframes and annotating them in Sketch. Wireframes are then uploaded to Zeplin so that developers can inspect the contents and accurately code the desired changes. Below are examples of the annotated wireframes that I provided.