Case Study

Optimizing for enrollment conversions

Services in this project:

  • Sketch of a butterfly in black and white Envision

Using decision maps to optimize the Life Insurance enrollment process

For over 100 years, Mutual of Omaha has committed to providing an array of insurance and financial products to fit their customers’ lifestyle. Having previously journey mapped their customers’ full life cycle, Mutual of Omaha engaged Paragon to dig deeper in a specific part of the journey — the “Getting Coverage” process. Their aim was to uncover why customers choose a particular response channel (paper application, call, or online), how they can reduce operational costs, and practical ways to optimize their digital channels for applicants.

To help Mutual of Omaha completely understand their customers’ decision-making, Paragon performed qualitative, contextual reviews.  During these in-depth interviews, Paragon followed the journey through the enrollment process by examining how they reacted to direct mail pieces, assessing the sales process, and observing online behaviors for all subjects. Paragon found the customer’s “Getting Coverage” journey is diverse, non-linear, and nuanced – with no two customer journeys exactly the same. 

The interviews allowed Paragon to develop an informative decision map, showing how key factors and behavior profiles impact which enrollment channel customers choose. Paragon also recommended solutions to help simplify the online experience, enhance the user experience, promote online applications, and improve Mutual of Omaha’s brand messaging to reverse the perception that applying online is difficult and time-consuming. With the assistance of the decision map and other insights, Mutual of Omaha has begun to implement quick win recommendations to enhance their digital customer experience.

Historically, online has been our most underutilized channel for life insurance enrollment. Paragon’s decision mapping project helped us better understand why this is and how we can optimize it to get more customers applying online. We started applying their recommendations and saw quick wins immediately!

Estelle Nichols, Customer Insights Manager

Paragon’s team assessed the sales process to understand and classify customer pain points. This assessment revealed the importance of having empathetic assistance available at both digital and traditional touchpoints to guide consumers through their buying journey.

Research revealed additional opportunities for Mutual of Omaha to educate consumers on its products and sell these consumers products most suitable to their needs. Paragon was able to discern how their online tools might be best suited to particular customer segments. In addition, Paragon found usability enhancements to improve those online tools.

Getting coverage is complicated; marketing messaging needs to have an immediate impact. Paragon was able to make recommendations to help Mutual of Omaha refine their direct mail and website marketing value proposition and approach. 

Paragon’s research revealed distinct behavioral profiles that customers had across response channels – impacting which channel they ultimately chose. By interviewing an appropriate breadth of customers, Paragon was able to determine which customer archetypes would be more likely to apply online in the future, and what targeted messaging would most help them convert.