Creating an amazing tool to motivate agents and increase sales

The problem to solve: MDRT (one million dollars in sales commissions) is the principal KPI for Hong Kong insurance agents. An agent could only be updated on the progress toward his goal by asking his manager, the only person with access to real time sales commission information.

Using the methodology: Understanding the MDRT program was the first task. I interviewed several in-house Sun Life agents to find out what the achievement meant to them. Was is required? How difficult was MDRT to achieve? What happens when you reach MDRT? How are you following your progress now?

I used the data in project and stakeholder meetings to advise about expectations that I learned In the interviews. One unexpected finding: Agents were purchasing third party sales tracking software with their own money to help them estimate their progress.

Project execution: I benchmarked by checking out some of the third party software that the users mentioned. I made some low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes to show agents. I made sure to keep the user in the early part of the process to keep the concepts on the right path. As the concepts were finessed via informal user tests and project meetings, we readied for the design of the final MVP

Before Development: The final prototype was created on Sketch and InVision. This prototype was taken to agents for formal testing. One feature was a motivational graphic/interaction that was activated when the agent reached each of the three levels of MDRT achievement.

The surprising user test showed us that the first (and principal) achievement, was the only important one (often taking up to 10 months to accomplish). Showing the other two levels implied to some users that they were expected to reach the unlikely achievement level, and amazingly demotivated the user. 

In spite of the product owner being in love with this clever feature, the data and the user feedback made it clear that the feature had to be revised to highlight the first level only. Discovering this problem prior to development was critical to avoid downstream failure.

Outcome and Impact: We were the first company to digitize MDRT progress. This became a recruiting benefit in a very aggressive job market. MDRT became the cornerstone of the larger internal Sun Life agent sales activity app. Initial adoption of the tool by the agents was extremely high, and we were able to sunset the outdated desktop-only sales activity tool.