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Crafting a user centric experience for Equity Release Supermarket
How might we utilise user insights to help Equity Release Supermarket deliver more customer value?
Financial advisory service Equity Release Supermarket (ERS) recognised that the current landscape didn’t cater for consumers who wanted to learn more about accessing the money tied up within the value of their homes.
ERS’ vision was to create a platform that provided consumers with not only more control, but more in-depth information, a better understanding of the plans available and greater insight to match their individual requirements.
With the technology behind the platform already developed, we were briefed to research, design and deliver a new customer experience.
Equity release is a complex topic many will not be familiar with before accessing advisory services. This hypothesis was validated by our research which showed users had little understanding of the process of equity release, the products available or why they should use ERS.
From the initial research, we then identified three core customer journeys:
With various calculators and comparison tools distributed across many pages, we simplified this journey into a single tool, smartER, allowing customers to enter details, compare deals and search plans across the whole market.
It was important for ERS to maintain a consistent approach across its other internal systems and platforms. We introduced a multi-brand design system containing all assets and components that could be applied across all – streamlining the brand as a whole.
So users could intuitively navigate through the research phase of releasing equity, smartER was used as the ‘next step’ following on from the quick calculator and research tools across the website.
As the primary demographic of customers in equity release are homeowners over 50, we considered accessibility throughout and ensured that colour contrast met WCAG standards.
Use of language, length and the phrasing of sensitive questions were also carefully considered so that customers could understand why certain information was required on forms.
