Two firms have been involved in this initiative, namely Digital Partners as an agency operating in the sector of digital marketing and NN Hayat ve Emeklilik operating in the sector of insurance and investment management as Turkey branch of the global company called NN Group. NN Hayat ve Emeklilik’s mobile application named “NN Sesin Mobilin” was redesigned. In the light of the brief provided by NN Hayat ve Emeklilik, the process was conducted by the staff of Digital Partners. 17 people in total played an active role during the process. One project manager, one marketing manager and two customer experience specialists and testers from NN Hayat ve Emeklilik were involved in the project. From Digital Partners, one project manager, one head of UI/UX, one account manager, one junior iOS developer, one senior iOS developer, one junior Android developer, one senior Android developer, two UX designers, two UI designers, and two testers were involved. The whole process took one year. The redesigned mobile application was published on May 2019.
This initiative has embraced the idea that it is possible to improve the mobile application called NN Senin Mobilin in terms of user experience. In the process, first, trends and competitors were assessed through benchmarking techniques. Then, ongoing imperfections of the current mobile application were analyzed. Target group was defined as 45+ year-old customers. After user personas were described, interviews were conducted in order to have a better understanding of users’ needs and expectations. Accordingly, a prototype was developed and tested. Following the reviews after testing process, the mobile application was finalized and published.
The target group of NN Senin Mobilin have been composed of 45-year-old or older people whose digital literacy is not very high. Hence, 42 hours of in-depth interviews in total were conducted to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the needs and expectations of current and possible users. Based on this extensive effort, creating an easily manageable mobile application was highly prioritized. During the development of all tools and in the testing processes, this particular group was considered.
Previous mobile application has held various imperfections such as being impractical in use and slow in functioning. More importantly, however, there has been a remarkable incompatibility between what mobile application offers and what users would expect. For instance, very small and illegible static graphics was not appealing to users. Hence, main rationale of this project has been based on an effort to provide a mobile application which addresses its users directly. Desired outcome has been to create a mobile experience within which users will not feel unable to operate, defeated by technology, or lost.
The most significant difficulty in the project was to act according to the global guideline and adapt technological innovations to the mobile application while also giving particular importance to digital needs of a relatively senior target group. Since the needs of targeted users do not necessarily correspond to the requirements of NN Group’s global guideline, the project was delicately conducted in a manner to please each party and has become a distinguishable example of customer experience transformation. This condition definitely rendered the project highly challenging. As a method to overcome this difficulty, the guideline was localized in a way to address these necessities rather than word by word implementation.
Because of this distinct characteristic, this initiative appears to be a unique example of simplification of the new business application process. With this aim, the user interface was designed in a way that any user can reach transactions menu through just two clicks. “Remember Me” function during logging in and in-app written/voice search were enabled. Functions of fund comparison and fund distribution change were integrated so that users can manage their investments by comparing the returns of their funds. In-app contribution change function was added in order to enable users to save more money and make their investments more profitable by making necessary changes in the related contribution rate. While they are making such decisions regarding their investments, they can get help from risk profile questionnaire which is a tool providing guidance about the risk situation of the funds. In order to provide new capabilities for customers, informative videos for the products to be sold and how-to-use hints for each function were integrated into the mobile application. Also, new tools were implemented by taking the target group’s expectations into consideration. FonBilen, a fund advisory tool offering recommendations based on a questionnaire filled in by users, was developed. DahaFazlaBiriktir function, a button to motivate people to save more money by pushing it, was integrated.
Following technologies were used in the mobile application: 1) As a native mobile application, NN Senin Mobilin was developed separately for iOS and Android. 2) It functions in an integrated way with NN Hayat ve Emeklilik’s current approach to customer relationship management. 3) The function to send personalized notifications to users was designed. 4) Online insurance payment option was developed. 5) The function of logging in through fingerprint reader was designed.
After redesigned mobile application was published, the number of impressions increased 15%, product page views increased 53%, download rate increased 20%, and active usage rate increased 48%. Tens of positive comments were written on mobile application stores.
Introduction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7FBIp9sKM&feature=youtu.be