ABOUT
Delaware Life sells annuities in most U.S. states through agents (producers) who market and sell contracts. The company follows a B2B2C business model, deals with businesses and clients. They need to track the applications received, documents, payments / transfers and application activation.
Delaware Life was expanding and had received applications three times it’s usual capacity. This project was an urgent need for the team.
PROCESS
I apply the double diamond process for a design solution in the product design process.
Discover – understand the issue
Define – Define what we are going to solve
Develop – Work on the solution through ideation, wireframing, and prototyping
Delivery – launching and monitoring
PROBLEM
The operations team handling the applications deals with 1035 transfers. The process involves reviewing the transfer package, searching for information on the transfer company in the yellow pages, preparing the required paperwork, and sending it to the transfer company. Filling in the form takes a minimum of 30 – 40 minutes per application. A solution was required to speed up the process and make it more accurate.
TEAM
Product Designer: Shuchi Sharma
Product Owner: Derek Towriss | Scrum Master: Brian McQueen| Front End Developer: Neal Hamilton, Brannon Darby | Back End Developer: Noel Hahn | Quality Assurance: Amie DeLooza
| ROLE | TIME |
|---|---|
| Research, Design Strategy, Product Design, Product Analytics | 1 Month |
DISCOVER
As a first step, we worked through the existing workflow. We interviewed case management officers from the operations team. Different teams handled different sections. We observed their process from receiving the application to document verification, premium tracking, and document dispatching.
We noted problems identified in the process and what we could do to help improve it. We worked on different parts, but this case study is about speeding up the 1035 yellow page processing.
The process involved