The Background

Havas helia developed a web-based email management tool (EMT) for Liberty Mutual’s client partnership program. This tool acts as augmented project management software. It tracks the progress of an email campaign from start to finish; sending email reminders as due dates approach, organizing email lists, and automatically getting client approval on the email campaigns before being sent.

The Liberty Mutual internal team of relationship managers (RMs) use the tool, which streamlines many processes and saves them a good amount of time. Previously, the RMs had to manually track each step of the process for each client’s sends, which took up a great deal of time and resources.

The EMT dashboard

The Challenge

The first iteration of the EMT focused more on the project management aspect of the client partnership program and was built quickly as a proof of concept. Once we were able to gather useful data about the ways the RMs were using the tool and the ways they wanted to use the tool, I was brought in to do a full overhaul of the UX and incorporate feedback from the RMs.

We planned for the second iteration of the tool to bring in new features that automate and streamline email processes, which would allow the RMs to:

• generate email creative specific to their client partners
• schedule the emails (including functionality to schedule multiple emails at once)
• send out test emails for approval from the client partners
• deploy the emails
• track the analytics for each send

 

 The Approach

We started by identifying the main processes that we wanted to change.

The purpose of the update was to enable the RMs to quickly schedule multiple email deployments for their clients, then layering in functionality to generate the email creative and have it automatically sent to the clients for approval.

All of these steps take place in the scheduling section of the tool, so I created a revised task flow incorporating all of the functionality we wanted to add to ensure we addressed every use case and didn’t forget to design out any pages later.

The email scheduling task flow.

By creating this task flow, we were able to identify all of the new pages that needed to be created as a part of this update. We were also able to clarify the paths for each selection in the scheduling process, so that we could be sure the RM would get to where they expected to go.

 

Scheduling Multiple Email Deployments

This update included a lot of additional functionality, but the most challenging feature to add to the tool was the ability to schedule multiple email deployments at once.

Many RMs know their clients’ deployment schedules for the upcoming year, and wanted the ability to schedule all email deployments at once to make the best use of the project management aspects of the tool. In the current iteration of the tool, this process was time-consuming and largely repetitive.

Our goal was to remove the repetitive form fields on the scheduling page and add in the ability to schedule multiple emails for the same client partner, which would save the RMs time and decrease errors in form field selection.

 

Streamlining Form Fields

With the help of the RMs, we identified form fields on the email scheduling page that were client-specific, instead of deployment-specific. These fields were updated annually, and made the scheduling process much longer and more time-consuming due to the RMs entering in the same information over and over.

We moved the fields to the client profile page, where they would live with general client information. This information is then automatically pulled through to the email deployment and lives on the email scheduling page as a summary of information.

A before and after comparison of the email scheduling page

 

Moving so many fields to the client profile page freed up space for us to add on additional options and, most importantly, the ability to add on the option for scheduling multiple email deployments at once. Before, scheduling an email deployment was a long and tedious process, so the team wanted to avoid adding on any additional fields.

Now, however, we were able to add on the ability for an RM to schedule an entire year’s worth of emails on one page, and even included design options that allow the RM to generate the creative for the email deployments being created.

Adding Fields to the Client Profile Page

The changes we made to the email scheduling page allowed for that page to shrink, but in doing so we had to expand the client profile page to fit the additional information.

A before and after comparison of the client profile page

 

I added quite a few form fields to the client profile page, but was able to break them up into three main groupings of information:

• Client information
• Email client information
• List information

Breaking the content up into these three sections make the page much more digestible and easier to update as needed. And because the RMs only update this page once or twice a year, I felt it was more beneficial to make this a longer page, as opposed to the email scheduling page where RMs spend a significant amount of time.

 

The Style Changes

I also made several style updates to the EMT to increase clarity. These included updated tab treatments, revised button styles, and a more concise calendar. The gallery below shows some before and after examples of the style updates

The Results

This iteration of the EMT saves the RM 8 hours of work due to the removal of repetitive fields, multiple slotting, and automatic email generation.

We successfully streamlined the most time-consuming aspect of this tool, making it more efficient and easier to use for the RMs.

We receive feedback on the tool regularly from the Liberty Mutual RMs and are gathering information on this iteration in order to make updates in the future