— Case Study
A user research initiative to better understand our top accounts, the Lighthouse group
Deliverables:
Research Plan
Interview Guide
Interview Snapshots
Persona
Report of Findings
The Product
Better Agency's SaaS product, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, is like Salesforce for the insuretech industry. A niche market made of small teams and fairly conservative budgets, independent insurance agencies need industry-specific features in order to successfully run their business.
The Problem
Our startup was experiencing high churn rates. As an early stage company, we also hadn't nailed down our target customer. If we could identify the set of customers who were seeing the most value in our product and learn why, we could establish a strategy to reduce churn.
How might we better understand our Lighthouse customers, so we can help non-LH customers get to a similar product value, recruit new LH customers, and ultimately decrease customer churn?
The Plan
We used Pendo PES (Product Engagement Scores) and annual revenue to stack rank each account. From here, we created 3 customer segments: 1) Lighthouse, our top accounts; 2) Goldilocks, accounts who were at the tipping point of reaching product value; and 3) Churn Risk, accounts we were at high risk of losing soon. While our CX (Customer Success) team began proactive outreach to those in the churn risk group, I began to focus on a UXR plan for our Lighthouse group of top accounts.
I set out to uncover the reasons for our top accounts' success and product value reach, in order to 1) help other existing customers get to this same or similar product value, and 2) target these types of prospects in the future.
The Role
This user research project was my baby. I established a research plan and strategy, owned recruitment, led user sessions, analyzed findings, and wrote the report. And I rather enjoyed myself.
The Work
This project's user research resulted in many more written assets vs. visual (sorry! ;) ) - But there's plenty to dive into below.
Asset 1: Research Plan
Asset 2: Interview Guide
Asset 3: Interview Snapshots
Asset 4: Report of Findings = the good stuff!
TLDR: I spoke to 8 out of our 16 top-value accounts, also known as our lighthouse agencies. Lighthouse agencies were defined by identifying the accounts with highest product adoption and stickiness, as well as a pre-defined range of consistent monthly premium sold.
After all of the 1:1 user sessions I led, I created pretty detailed interview snapshots with my raw notes and recordings.
These Lighthouse snapshots guided me (had to do it) in the creation of our Lighthouse persona.
The analysis resulted in a set of defined themes for the Lighthouse customers. A few that I found to me the most powerful are below. To review all themes, please check out the full report.
The Juice
Theme #1: Rule Followers and Technical Trainers
All Lighthouse agencies completed the onboarding path provided by Better Agency(BA). Team members were requried to watch onboarding trainings applicable for their roles and attend live seminars. All agencies had also identified BA "product champions". Through various efforts, these team members help train other staff on the workflows required for their position.
Theme #2: Renewals have equal value to New Sales
O/A’s give their renewals just as much care as generating leads. They view their clients as longterm relationships and put equal effort into servicing/retaining them vs. the new. Half of the O/A’s expressed that they believe they are unique for viewing renewals this way.
“I think renewals are the heart of, re-showing that you really care to a client. So what makes me different than 46,000 other independent insurance agents in California? I could show that in a renewal.” — Marty J.
“We have, I think it’s 28 touch points with our customers a year.” — Erin A.
Theme #3: One Team One Dream
Teams work closely together to accomplish goals. New leads and existing customers are supported through multiple team members vs. 1:1 relationships. This sometimes means shared inboxes and shared financial benefits.
“Our company is run as 1 unit. It’s a team effort… And I am very much in the trenches with my team.” — Adam B.
Time's up / Next Steps
The learnings from the Lighthouse initiative provided Better Agency the insight needed to help other customers reach the same product value. Following the completion of this user research, our internal onboarding team began to proactivley reach out to agencies outside of the LH group. The team offered additional training to help agencies create workflows, allowing them to maximize use of our product. They also began to schedule weekly trainings with live Q&A, covering core features and recommended workflows. Following these immediate steps, our CX team also reworked their entire onboarding process for new users. We began to see reduction in churn 3 months after the proactive outreach and additional training offerings.
From a product perspective, we learned how important renewals are for our top-performing customers. This led to approved budget and resources for updates to The Renewal Pipeline — more on that in this case study.