Hello Reader!

Have you ever thought about buying a term life policy, only to stop and wonder, “Do I really need to be this prepared?” If you’re like me, you’ve probably hovered over that “Purchase” button more than a few times, only to hold back. Decisions like these—important yet seemingly non-urgent—often require more than just a gentle nudge. That’s where great product design makes all the difference.

Over the past few months, Dhairya Thakker and team have worked tirelessly to create an industry-leading experience for purchasing term life insurance. Their goal? To design a smooth, intuitive, and empowering journey that simplifies what can often feel like an overwhelming decision.

As a UX researcher, I joined this project later in the process, but just in time to uncover key pain points and provide insights to refine the experience. In this newsletter, I’ll take you through the research that shaped some key action points that enhanced the Retail Term Life (RTL) experience.

Enjoy the read, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions—drop me a line at jahnavi@plumhq.com!

Beyond Drop-offs

Every New Year’s Eve, millions gather in Times Square, New York, to witness the iconic ball drop. While listening to a recent episode of my favourite podcast, I discovered an interesting twist to this tradition: the meticulously choreographed spectacle was originally designed as a marketing strategy to attract crowds, encouraging them to window-shop and spread the word—ultimately boosting local businesses.

This got me thinking—drop-offs in the user journey might not always be a bad thing. Sometimes, they’re just the digital equivalent of window shopping. When it comes to major decisions like purchasing Term Life insurance, market exploration is inevitable. Users need time and space to weigh their options.

So, the real goal is to guide users toward a confident purchase decision, whether that happens today, tomorrow, or later. To achieve this we need to start by understanding the user.

The user

For digital products like RTL, the user experience on the app often serves as the first—and sometimes only—sales pitch. Its job is to captivate any kind of user within seconds of landing on the screen. RTL caters to two key groups of users—

  • The high-intent ones: Actively comparing plans but hesitant to share personal data, often revisiting before deciding.
  • The low/no-intent ones: Our OG window-shoppers who casually browse or stumble upon the product accidentally, with no immediate intention to buy.

The challenge is crafting a product that persuades both groups, despite their differing needs and goals.

Attention to details

Here are some key action points that emerged from our research insights that helped us in enhancing the experience for both our user groups:

  1. Providing Multiple Avenues for Curiosity
    Our responsibility is to keep the user engaged until they thoroughly explore the product. We introduced contextual FAQs and a ChatBot to address unconventional questions like ‘What happens in a scenario of unemployment?’— while opening multiple channels to connect with experts.
  2. Eliminate misunderstandings
    Users often view Plum’s products as seamless extensions of their existing experience with Plum. For instance, some assume that term life insurance provides immediate coverage, similar to health insurance. We assumed the responsibility to ensure clarity and set accurate expectations.
  3. Simplify Jargon
    Handling jargon is a delicate balance: it’s crucial not to overwhelm experienced users while ensuring new users don’t drop off. We resorted to tooltips and refined copy to clarify terms without disrupting the user experience.
  4. From factual to intuitive copy
    We focus on insightful, persuasive copy that highlights why users should act now and choose Plum over competitors, rather than just listing product facts that might not impact their decision making.

Guiding user to the right plan

After successfully captivating the user, the next challenge is helping potential buyers choose the ideal plan. This requires gathering relevant information, for which we have a questionnaire in place.

However, user drop-offs halfway through the questionnaire revealed high-friction questions and lack of clarity as significant issues. To address these issues, we refined the questionnaire to create a smoother, more intuitive experience:

  1. Reorder the Flow: High-friction questions were moved to the end to ease users into the process.
  2. Streamline Questions: Only essential questions were retained, eliminating unnecessary steps.
  3. Enhance Transparency: Clear explanations accompany each question, outlining why the information is needed and how it benefits the user.

These small changes significantly reduced friction and made the experience more user-friendly ultimately preventing them to drop-off before they finished their exploration.

Plan recommendations

During the final phase of the product journey when users are presented with three tailored plan recommendations—we recognized three key action points that could ease their decision making:

  1. Upfront insurer details for decision making - Users place the most value on the insurer while making their purchase decisions. So, it is important to give it enough visual hierarchy for this information.
  2. Empowering Users with Customization - High-intent users prefer exploring different options before purchasing. Introducing toggles for adjusting the sum assured and coverage period empowers them to customize recommendations to their needs.
  3. Bridging the product and consultant experience - After receiving recommendations, users often consult Plum experts, but the recommendations from the app weren’t integrated into these calls, forcing them to repeat the journey offline. We resolved this by aligning both experiences for seamless continuity.

What else?

Apart from UX experience, the research also helped lay the Product Marketing Manager(PMM) strategy.

We identified the crucial windows during which a user’s intent can be turned up from low to high–an event of marriage or child birth, after a successful claim or immediately after purchasing another retail product.

We also helped the PMM team with low-hanging action points to make their comm structure more impactful. Here are few examples:

  1. Focusing on to-the-point emailers rather than dump education on the user.
  2. Short-form communication through WhatsApp and push notifications over lengthy emails.
  3. Piggybacking on the existing nostalgic understanding of Term-life—For example, most users associated Term-life cover with LIC (Life Insurance Corporation) and their familiar jingle ‘zindagi ke saath bhi zindagi ke baad bhi’.

What else?

Dhairya and the team are focused on enabling a seamless self-checkout experience for informed users, and Plum Research is fully committed to turning that vision into reality. The RTL research exercise was an initiative, offering end-to-end insights that extended far beyond UX.

It showcased how research can empower product teams to create well-rounded, resilient solutions. As we look ahead, I’m filled with optimism and excitement for more transformative research projects that continue to drive innovation and growth. Here’s to building smarter, stronger products—together!

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