ELEVATING PHONE CALL EXPERIENCE FOR 500K+ CUSTOMER BASE

Restructuring Conversational IVR

COMPANY

Assurant

ROLE

User Researcher Project Manager

Tools

Figma, LucidChart, Figma Slide, R Studio

YEAR

2025

"How can I quickly talk to a real person on the phone!"

This is a common sentiment when customers call a service to resolve an issue, anxiety often intensifies, especially when they're contacting their insurance provider about a broken phone.


Business Objective

Redesign Assurant’s IVR system to create a more intuitive, multi-modal phone experience that helps users file device protection claims with ease, addressing key pain points like unclear prompts, voice recognition errors, and lack of progress visibility during the claims process.

My Role

Led UX research and strategy for the IVR redesign, synthesizing call transcripts, mapping user journeys, and defining prompt logic to reduce friction, improve clarity, and support a smoother claims experience for users navigating technical issues.

Impact

  • Reduced drop-off, faster claims processing, higher clarity

  • Demonstrated how UX research and conversation design improve trust

  • Created a scalable, multimodal IVR flow applicable beyond phone claims


Research - Asking the right questions

Methods:

  • Market Benchmarking

  • Literature Review

  • User Testing Round 1 (14 participants, metrics: error rates, satisfaction, clarity, navigation)



After First Round of User Interviews



We discovered that



Key Findings:

  • 23.6 steps on average to complete claim

  • Users were confused about when to speak

  • 6.8/10 frustration; only 4.2/10 satisfaction

  • IVR lacked feedback, recovery prompts, and progress visibility


Insights




Personas - What are they accually going through in this journeys

  • Anxious Annie: Easily overwhelmed, needs clear timing cues and reassurance

  • Goal-Oriented Gina: Tech-savvy, wants speed and confirmation

  • Old Man Oliver: Low tech comfort, wants agent access and visual support

Recommended Solutions


Prompt Redesign

  • Reordered prompts to follow a more logical flow (e.g., authorization before contact info)

  • Introduced standardized key options: “# to go back”, “0 to repeat”

  • Added hybrid prompts like “say it or press a number”

  • Integrated fallback logic after 3 failed attempts

Visual IVR Prototype

  • Enabled users to switch mid-call to a guided web form

  • Sent SMS with a link based on phone number recognition



Does it work? Time To Validate Our Design Decision

We decided to invite several users to test our new designs by completing a set of tasks. At the end, we’ll ask follow-up questions to assess their satisfaction and overall experience.


Test Criteria

We will look at

📊 Completion Rate – Tracks the percentage of users who successfully finish key tasks in the flow

⏱️ Time to Complete – Measures how long it takes users to complete a task, helping identify friction points

🚧 Drop-Off Points – Highlights where users are exiting or getting stuck during the experience

💬 Confidence Score – Captures how confident users feel after completing each task. We will also ask them to score their outcomes.


User Testing Round 2


Outcomes and Validations

Phone-only redesign:

  • Duration ↓ 24.8%

  • Satisfaction ↑ 121%

  • Frustration ↓ 53.6%


Phone + Visual IVR:

  • Duration ↓ 44.6%

  • Satisfaction ↑ 60%

  • Frustration ↓ 62.5%




Results

  • Reduced drop-off, faster claims processing, higher clarity

  • Demonstrated how UX research and conversation design improve trust.

  • Created a scalable, multimodal IVR flow applicable beyond phone claims


Next Step

  • Recommend SMS handoff as a default for high-friction tasks

  • A/B test additional fallback paths for older adults

  • Further research on visual IVR accessibility and alternative language support


Reflection

  • Emphasize your leadership in coordinating UX research, synthesizing pain points, and mapping conversational flows

  • Share what you learned about designing for stress scenarios and error recovery in IVR environments