Ombudsman Services
Reimagining the future of Ombudsman Services
How might we reduce the friction of users accessing Ombudsman Services and improve the cost to serve?
Ombudsman Services were transitioning to a B2B model and wanted to explore the value in data to create an offering that would help influence partner consumer strategies.
Its goal was to remodel its footprint to create a new profit centre, whilst optimising the traditional cost centre of the business. But Ombudsman also needed to reach the untapped 90% of its potential audience and required the data for regulation.
With no product to support yet, we were part of a programme of change to redefine the Ombudsman brand, map their end-to-end customer journey and lay the digital groundwork for the future.
We began with a broader look across the Ombudsman Services landscape. This included brand workshops with staff and stakeholders, lab interviews and surveys with customers and user testing of Ombudsman’s case management system.
From the insights gathered, we found that:
To visualise Ombudsman’s service experience, we mapped out the entire end-to-end customer journey. This helped us understand their customers’ needs and create four emotionally driven mindsets within different customer groups.
This ultimately changed Ombudsman’s understanding of their customers and how they engaged with them across their digital touchpoints.
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After establishing the vision and strategy for digital we moved to define the visual direction for the brand and execution. Ombudsman needed to clearly communicate their role early in the complaint process and create design journeys to manage user expectations.
We identified key problem areas and themes in the journey, before designing page-level content that allowed customers self-identify what stage of the process they were at. Appropriate questions were used to filter out those not ready to continue the process and gave clear instructions on the next steps.
After establishing the vision and strategy for digital we moved to define the visual direction for the brand and execution. Ombudsman needed to clearly communicate their role early in the complaint process and create design journeys to manage user expectations.
We identified key problem areas and themes in the journey, before designing page-level content that allowed customers self-identify what stage of the process they were at. Appropriate questions were used to filter out those not ready to continue the process and gave clear instructions on the next steps.
With Ombudsman’s services required to be accessible for all, we helped educate on how to apply inclusive design throughout the website, including how to implement accessibility tools so that customers using their own tools were able to access their services.
We also produced a short animation video to communicate the changes Ombudsman were making across its brand, products and services.
