In both business and design, nothing can be accidental. It’simportant to think about every aspect of what you’re building andknow the justifications behind a decision.

Userexperience design (abbreviated as UX design) is the process ofenhancing user satisfaction with a product or service by improvingthe usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in theinteraction with the product. The system could be a website, a webapplication or desktop software and, in modern contexts, isgenerally denoted by some form of human-computer interaction — butany sort of business can learn from the practice.

I sat down with our world-class design team, in charge of everyuser experience, workflow, and interface within the Maxwell Healthplatform to talk about why it’s so important to learn ourcustomers’ pain points, the strategies that they use, and whatbenefits advisors can learn from them.

It takes a village

In any business, customer feedback comes in both qualitative andquantitative forms, through many different channels and peoplewithin a team. As we discussed in our last article, it’s critical that everyoneon your team understands the importance of gathering customerfeedback and appreciates what the data will inform goingforward.

Create a workflow to gather and categorize feedback as it comesto you, and hold your entire team accountable so they stick to theprocess. It is the responsibility of everyone that interacts withcustomers to be the eyes and ears on the ground for feedback, andto understand the next steps so the company can act onit.

Commit and assign a champion

Like so many business initiatives, gathering and acting onfeedback gathered from customers will only be successful if thereare resources dedicated to the initiative. It’s critical to assigna person or team to own the process and prioritizeaction.

Our company’s customer-facing teams aggregate, tag andcategorize customer feedback as it comes in, saving it in acentralized system for our product teams to learn from and actupon. Product Designer Carrie Casey owns the process of pulling thedata on a monthly basis and sorting it based on common areas ofimprovement in order to get a high level, but valuable, view of themost common areas of feedback, and prioritize what to dive intomore deeply.

Reach out early and often

It’s also important to reach out proactively and talk to thepeople who might not regularly raise their hand to share theirexperiences with your team.

Our design team reaches out to users at every stage in the UXdesign process, with a variety of strategies that can adapt toagencies’ services and client support.

“Before we even start designing, we’ll often sit in on supportcalls, or read recaps of actual conversations our team has had withour customers. We’ll also host exploratory sessions where we don’tshow anything, we just ask things like, ‘In an ideal world, howwould want to solve this problem?” says Athena Ziavras, UXResearcher for Maxwell. “It’s super important for us to let them dothe talking, and not to drive the conversation. We want tounderstand their frame of mind and hear their dreams.” Askingopen-ended questions like this of your clients can help you drilldown to their most important problem, right away — and it may notbe what you expect.

After initial exploratory sessions, the design team leadsusability sessions with prototypes and interactive wireframes. These are low-cost, quick waysto test a concept, without using resources that should be dedicatedto making finalized designs a reality. They’ll do several rounds ofwireframes and usability sessions before settling on a finaldesign, making sure to incorporate user feedback throughout theprocess of conceptualizing a new initiative. Similarly, you shouldgo back to the drawing board after hearing your clients' problemsor questions and come back to them with an action plan foraddressing it, upon which they can provide feedback.

When designs are final, the team uses short surveys, both withinthe platform and through other channels, to gauge sentiment onrecent improvements both during the experience of using a newfunction, and after. The team also follows up with anyone whoindicates in a survey that they’re willing to share in order tolearn as much from them as possible. Some of our benefit advisorpartners conduct customer satisfaction surveys right after anenrollment period to help understand where there's room forimprovement on both the employee and HR side.

Be transparent with your customers

In taking time away from their work to provide feedback, yourclients are doing you a favor. It’s an indication that they rely onyour service and they’re invested in your success as a company.They’ll look forward to seeing their ideas come to fruition,especially if their feedback comes from a specific painpoint.

Building empathy goes both ways. Be transparent with yourclients and help them understand your process to incorporate theirfeedback into solutions going forward. You don’t always need aninstant solution. Making sure that your clients feel listened to,and making sure that they know you’re working to solve theirproblems is paramount to creating a positive, long-termrelationship.