Allianz - Electrix - User-Centric Design - Market Adoption - Personalized Recommendations - Customer Satisfaction - Performance Analytics
Incubate to Innovate
Allianz business strategy is to swiftly spin up incubators to drive business growth in business areas that tangentially relate to the core insurance business, to seek rapid growth and exploration of a market.
I led the Growth element of the business for consumers, where a need for rapid delivery and laser focus on achieving goals was required from a disruptor point of view.
I had ambitious KPIs too achieve and a roadmap to build.
Setting the Pace
Market Penetration Rate
Target: Achieve 5% market penetration within 12 months
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Target: Decrease CAC below £150 per customer,
Conversion Rate
Target: Achieve a conversion rate of 3% for online platform
Product Adoption Rate
Definition: The rate at which new users start using the product after its launch.
Target: Reach 1,000 active users within the first 3 months.
Identifying the Need
Understanding the Problem: We began by identifying a gap in the market: consumers were overwhelmed by choices when selecting an electric vehicle (EV) and the right finance package. The need for a tool that simplifies this decision-making process became clear.
Research and Insights: We conducted extensive market research, including surveys and focus groups, to understand the specific challenges faced by potential users. This helped us pinpoint what features were essential for the tool.
It also allowed us to understand who we were up against - AA & Octopus Energy were heavy hitters in the marketplace
Building a Plan
The sheer scale of choice and lack of product knowledge created a significant gap in the market. The consumers needed a champion who will educate and inform without aggressively pushing a product, a concierge service to help them understand what options were available
User-Centric Design: Our goal was to create an intuitive and engaging tool. We designed a user-friendly interface that guides users through a series of relevant questions to match them with suitable EV options and finance terms.
Prototyping and Testing: We developed interactive prototypes and conducted usability tests with real users. Their feedback was invaluable in refining the tool’s design and functionality, ensuring it was both effective and easy to use.
The Labyrinth
Navigating the complexities of a finance and insurance mega organization with its strict roles and procedures has been both challenging and essential for my role as a product manager. These large institutions have rigid structures and detailed protocols designed to ensure compliance and efficiency, which actively posed as obstacles to innovation and swift decision-making. To manage this environment effectively, I’d learned to understand and respect these established roles and procedures while challenging firmly, driving for ways to streamline approvals and development processes.
Building strong relationships with key stakeholders and leveraging internal resources have been crucial strategies. Clear and consistent communication of our objectives had helped in aligning our efforts with the organization's protocols. Embracing a proactive approach to understanding the organizational landscape and adapting my strategies to fit within its structured setting has been vital in driving effective change and achieving our goals.
It was far from smooth sailing, finding the right people for the right approval process was far from easy, a new, healthy respect for meditation was developed as I tried to work through and, at times, bypass, processes that existed “because it’s always been that way” as well as understanding the benefit of those seemingly innocuous meetings that had significant decision makers present
Getting to the Starting Line
Developing and Integrating
Building the Tool: Our design team generated a prototype for us to test internally, working with select consumers who were considered “early adopters” with feedback from consumers being used to continually iterate and feed into the development team who progressively increased support on the tool, integrating algorithms to process user inputs and deliver personalized recommendations. We ensured it could handle various EV models and finance options.
Partner Integration: We partnered with automotive dealerships and financial institutions to offer a wide range of options and real-time updates, enhancing the tool’s reliability and relevance.
Launching the Tool
Marketing Strategy: We implemented a multi-channel marketing campaign, including social media, influencer partnerships, and targeted ads. Our aim was to build awareness and drive traffic to the tool.
Go-Live and Promotion: On launch day, we promoted the tool through press releases, email newsletters, and collaborations with industry partners. We also tracked initial user engagement and addressed any issues promptly.
Planting our Flag
User Feedback: We collected feedback from users to identify areas for improvement. Based on this input, we made iterative updates to enhance the tool’s functionality and user experience.
We found that we had made a tool that had incredibly high conversion rates (23%!) but not enough organic traffic coming through the door, we had successfully serviced a particular persona group “Early Adopters” - those who are informed of the EV market and have exposure to them previously, whether through previous ownership or family member, the concierge tool allowed for the user to find the right car for them through an engaging and entertaining quiz like tool.
A key learning I took away from this was stakeholder management, when first building a project around a product idea, you can never have too many colleagues involved to support and get buy-in for meetings, every perspective has at least a grain of useful information in a large organisation, or those colleagues may know the right person you need to get through the next gate in the product & delivery process.
A tool for one is not a tool for all, in the prototyping stage, we risked going too narrow in the consumer we were looking to engage with, then, when taking it to the wider business of Allianz, we risked going far too wide, we eventually tightened scope back down to a tighter grouping of 3 persona groups, though we only ended up fully engaging one.