The right direction, the right method, and the right execution will definitely yield the right result!

Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Product One Two Three” (ID: spm0123) author: queer Tianxiang.

This is a project launched two years ago, after one of our products “failed” (

It is worth mentioning that the practical operation of this project is fully authorized to be done by a product intern student. He is a child with extreme enthusiasm. It is not easy to achieve such results, but it is just like my general manager. That said, the right direction, the right method, and the right execution will have the right result, which is actually expected.

The background of the entire project is that our factory is the world’s first smart home manufacturer and has a large number of smart home users, so we have always expected to combine our insurance products with this scenario, but this field has never been a pioneer in China. Going out of the way, guarding this gold mine, we have been suffering from no good entry point.

In 18 years, there was news that long-term rental apartment room decoration caused the tenant to develop leukemia, which became a hot issue in the society. Because at the time there was an up-and-coming startup company Lemonade in the United States, its entry point was the insurance business for tenants, which had already raised hundreds of millions of dollars and was valued at 2 billion dollars. Based on this background, our assumption is whether it can Entering from the tenant market segment, packaging some of the tenant ’s pain points into a product through insurance leverage. At that time, preliminary talks were held with some insurance companies, including a series of home services with 58 Home, such as moving, Maintenance, but later found that we do not have the channel resources to reach this part of the user, so we gave up in time.

One day I saw the community WeChat groupDuring a theft incident that occurred in the community, one of the neighbors suggested that you can purchase a smart camera to prevent theft. Suddenly, I realized that I could cut in from the safety of family property. Security equipment is the user base of our factory. A very large category can be described as the right time and location, so the project was officially launched.

01 Market Analysis

First, we started to analyze the market. In 2017, the domestic property and casualty insurance market size was about 8 billion yuan, and the sales channels were still mainly offline. Online products were also very conventional, and sales were poor. In the same period, P & C insurance in the US market has a scale of nearly 700 billion yuan. The gap between domestic and foreign countries is very large. Of course, the gap is mainly reflected in the differences in consumer environment and consumer awareness between China and the United States. On the one hand, a house bank purchased by a US mortgage loan will require users to purchase home property insurance. On the other hand, the US insurance market is very mature. Personal insurance, medical insurance, housing insurance, etc., can be covered by a wide range of things. In insurance, they have also become a daily habit to buy insurance. At that time, we also commissioned our international partners to conduct a market analysis for the European market. The basic characteristics are similar to those in the United States, and will not be repeated here.

10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

So the famous predicament was before us:

“On a small island, all residents do n’t wear shoes. Is this a good or bad thing for people selling shoes?”

We first got an answer with the help of a benchmark in the industry. On the whole, China’s insurance industry is a less innovative industry. For a long time, it has been channel-driven. Insurance companies are engaged in product design, Risk pricing is very “not thinking”. For a time, major insurance companies were obsessed with the design of various gimmick insurance. On the one hand, they did not meet the actual needs of users. On the other hand, they also violated the principle of insurance. He died. One of the few products that integrates well with the Internet is the “million medical insurance” that is now well known. After summing up and refining its growth process, we think it is essentially the same as what we want to do. The directions are the same.

10 billion market, 10 times the industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

The first million-dollar medical insurance was launched by the Internet insurance company Zhongan in mid-2016, with a coverage of 1 million. For young people to middle-aged people, the average annual protection is only a few hundred dollars, which shocked the industry Applause and applaud, and made hundreds of millions of sales that year. Prior to this, the insurance company’s medical insurance products were basically more than a thousand yuan, and the claims were complicated and harsh, so there was no sense of existence. Of course, this is related to the historical environment. In the early days, the domestic public residents had low income and low risk awareness. It was not strong at the demand side, so there was no enthusiasm on the supply side. When the income of residents increased, medical care became a problem of social concern. The supply side has changed, but the supply side did not realize this for a long time due to empiricism. Therefore, Zhongan is eager to develop and needs to seize this blank spot on the supply side, and immediately explode the market through appropriate product strategies and marketing strategies:

Product: simplification and humanity

Price: super cost-effective

Channel: Mobile Internet sales (MLM-type virus transmission in the initial stage of the product, this is a point that many people tend to overlook. According to the original product manager, this product form has been in existence before, but it is sold through conventional channels. The effect is tepid, but also because the secondary distribution + high commission was used to explode the market at once)

Note: In 2019, the sales of this product have reached more than 4 billion, and the market ’s conservative estimate of the size of such products can also be 20 billion. The 40-fold growth in 3 years shows us The power behind product innovation.

Based on this logic, we determine that with the increase in residents’ incomes, housing prices are high (minimum houses in first-tier cities also require millions), and the user ’s demand for home property insurance has changed. The user group plus a product with strong appeal will definitely explode the market. Of course, the key point behind this logic is that the size of this group must be large enough. Of course, as mentioned earlier, security equipment is our factory’s user base. Big one category. So we made such a hypothesis of promotion strategy:

Intermediate and short-term focus on high-risk conscious users, long-term popularity to all smart home users

10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

02 User research

Through market-level analysis, it seems logically feasible, but can it really be accepted on the user side? Being user-centric, we still need to get answers from users, so we surveyed nearly 10,000 users through questionnaires. The main issues are as follows:

1. Have you encountered or worried about the loss of property from the following accidents? (Multiple choices)

10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

Review: Only 6% of users clearly stated that there is no demand, and 94% of users are potential users.

2. Have you bought a family property insurance to protect the loss of your family property?

10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

Comment: 22% of users have purchased it, which is higher than the market average, which is related to the characteristics of our factory users.

3. What is the reason why you did not purchase home insurance? (Multiple choices)

10 billion market, 10 times the industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

Comment: The first reason you have n’t bought is because you did n’t know it, and to some extent, it can be regarded as a supply-side problem.

4. If you need to buy home insurance, which of the following are the most important factors?

10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

Reviews: prices andPracticality is the most valued by users, and these two points have been considered in the product design process in the future

5. If you launch a more personalized and flexible family property security service than the market, would you consider buying? “

10 billion markets, 10 times the industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

Review: 89% of users indicate a willingness to buy

Through investigation, we can find that home property insurance will be a potential rigid demand for the users of our factory.

03 Product design

The product design part mainly includes four aspects:

Insurance product form, transaction process, service process, pricing

1. Product form design

In terms of product form, the main responsibility is to determine the guarantee responsibility, that is, what is guaranteed, which is equivalent to what functions a hardware device must provide. Regarding this, you can see that it is actually “taken from civilians to the people”. In the user survey, some guarantee contents that users are most concerned about were extracted to achieve comprehensive coverage. This aspect actually reflects one of the core advantages of Internet companies in making insurance products, that is, we are closer to users and understand them more. It is impossible for traditional insurance companies to collect feedback from 10,000 real users. I have read one In the dissertation, Haier entrusted an internationally well-known market research company to conduct user surveys when designing its own home appliance extended warranty products, but only collected feedback from more than 500 users. The gap in sample size is obvious.

10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

2. Design of transaction process

In addition to some more simplified processing based on the existing public transaction process, this part also has an episode. At that time, the children who were in charge of product design thought that users were more inclined to personalize in the current context. I choose to provide the function of custom selection, and I insist that minimalism is the right, less is more, you only need to provide fixed packages for users to choose. Of course, because of the insistence of the children, I agree with the intention inherently. After the package, the function of custom selection is provided. According to the data, nearly 30% of users have selected customPackages, it turns out that personalization is still based on user needs.

3. Service flow

During the product design process, I also emphasized the “touching people” design principle. For a long time, no matter whether it is an insurance company or an Internet company, everyone pays more attention to product sales when designing products, and rarely pays much attention to products. Service links. This is especially true for the traditional product of home property insurance. For example, if the family needs to issue a certificate to the public security organ after a theft, this process is a very tedious process. In response to this pain point, we proposed with the insurance company whether the security equipment can be used. The filmed video is used as evidence in claim settlement, thus eliminating the need for the public security organs to open the certification process.

So we have spent a lot of effort in the service process, and we have to go through the details of the terms and conditions provided by the insurance company word by word and sentence by sentence. The following shows part of the analysis of the service process organized by our product intern children at the time.

1) Traditional claims flow chart: (cumbersome, manual)

10 billion markets, 10 times the industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

  • Need to call to ask what claims materials

  • Need to collect claims materials independently and the process is complicated

  • It is difficult to obtain evidence without cameras and other equipment

  • It takes time to submit the delivery materials

    2) Smart claims

    Design concept: Internet insurance does not sell insurance through the Internet. Traditional Internet insurance only uses the network as a channel to sell insurance. It does not use interconnected technology and essentially does not allow users to experience the fun brought by the technology in Internet insurance , Lack of communication with users, purely passive sales, the real Internet insurance should be integrated Internet + big data technology to interconnect insurance and the network, change the entire service and claims process, so that users feel the true charm of Internet insurance, but never Not just using the internet as a sales channel

    10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

    Process description:

    • After the accident, the user will automatically trigger the claim process through the “one-click report” button that appears at the same time when the IoT device alarms.

    • Obtain the identity certificate, insurance policy from the background IoT device data, and intelligently determine the relevant claim materials such as the claim application corresponding to the relevant insurance type according to the insurance category filled in by the user and transfer it to the claim center.

    • Users only need to upload value certification documents (invoices) through online service channels when necessary. If no case is found, documents such as arbitration and contracts cannot be obtained automatically by the back office.

    • Users can check the progress of claims online through a smart device with voice interaction.

    • If the risk category is related to equipment damage, after the user’s claim is successful, through the IoT device interaction, APP push and other methods to give coupons for products of the same category.

      4. Pricing

      In the beginning, I always insisted on a product design concept, that is, I must not be a “wedding dress for others” product, which means that I must never make a competing product that can beat my product through traffic advantage. Therefore, the most direct barrier to competition for this product is reflected in dynamic pricing. Our view is:

      Security smart devices can effectively discover or prevent common risks in home scenarios, and help users reduce losses after risks occur, so they can enjoy preferential rates. The price ratio after the discount is lower than the lowest price on the entire network at that time. Even lower

      Our logic is to initially attract security equipment users with preferential rates. In the long term, user data authorization can be used to dynamically adjust its rate according to the actual home security situation of the user, so that the more secure users in the past can enjoy The more discounts, this is similar to the user’s credit accumulation. Once such a data model advantage is formed, other competitors cannot compete with us.

      In fact, this is also reflected in Google’s smart home subsidiary Nest. The combination with insurance serves as a point of service differentiation to help users save premiums.

      10 billion markets, 10 times the industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

      04 User test

      User testing refers to the designAfter drafting, product classmates use tools such as the ink knife to make high-fidelity prototypes, find some target users to test, observe the user’s actual operation behavior and ask corresponding questions, and find the product earlier before the product officially enters the research and development stage. Problems.

      Regarding user testing, although I used it occasionally before, but did not solidify it into our daily product process, but after reading the book “Design Sprint: How Google Ventures Completes Product Iteration in 5 Days” , I choose to solidify the user test link into our product process. Because a story mentioned in the book gave me a great shock:

      One night in August 1996, a publishing businessman named Nigel Newton left his office in the Soho district of London and returned home with a stack of manuscript papers. There are 50 book sample pages for reviewing by him, but he is not very optimistic about the book. Because the manuscript has been rejected by eight other publishing houses. That night, Newton didn’t read the samples, but handed them to his eight-year-old daughter Alice. Alice took it. An hour later, she ran out of the room, her face full of excitement. “Dad,” she said, “this book really looks good.”

      She couldn’t stop talking about the contents of the book. She wanted to finish the rest of the story and haunt her father-for months-until he got the manuscript later. In the end, Newton was impressed by her daughter’s dedication, signed a small contract with the author, and printed 500 volumes. That almost unavailable book is “Harry Potter and the Sage’s Stone”

      About user testing, we mainly carried out verification from two parts: product function and page design:

      I. Product Features

      1) Awareness of home property insurance

      • Do you know the type of property insurance?

      • Have you ever bought property insurance?

      • To what extent is demand for home insurance?

        2) Understanding of guarantee responsibility

        • Is there a literal misunderstanding of the name of each type of insurance and its liability? Which insurance types are there? Which sentence is there?

        • Does the coverage meet your needs? Are there any additional requirements? Do you want to continue to consider increasing the liability of insurance when the premium will increase?

        • Which insurance line or policies inspires the desire to buy? Which insurance is more important? Priority (statistical proportion)

          3) Sensitivity to price, coverage, and claims process

          • Which one is more important for price, coverage, and convenience of the claims process? Sorting

          • Which one do you prefer? Personalized package, fixed package?

            4) Understanding of the claims process

            • What aspects of the first-line offline claims are considered complicated by users and need to be optimized

            • Is the understanding and satisfaction of the timeliness of offline claims

            • What are the opinions on the documents required for claim settlement which are difficult to provide or are not realistic?

              Second page design

              1) Product details page

              • From this page, will users be able to grasp the prerequisites for a purchase?

              • Are there errors between the information we want to convey to the user and the information actually received by the user, is it a common phenomenon or a personal phenomenon? For example, can you judge whether your house is within the guarantee range?

                2) Mastery of sub-key information on the page

                • From this page, from the user’s point of view, what are the highlights of our products? Which one is most impressive?

                • Can we judge the difference between our products and other similar products?

                  3) The beauty and harmony of page layout

                  • Is there an interest in the intuitive feeling of the page to keep users watching? Complicated? Not clear enough? Can you give some reference?

                    Of course, according to the book “Design Sprint: How Google Ventures Completes Product Iteration in 5 Days”, “the same user research, with more than 5 participants, the extra gain is very small”, so we chose Five different types of users carried out user testing work, and indeed found a lot of optimization points through the user testing process. For example, in the naming of guarantee responsibility regarding theft and plumbing burst responsibility, we initially followed the comparative term “theft.” “Comprehensive insurance” and “Plumbing pipe burst”, the user said that they did not understand it during the test, and later changed to “Loot loss by theft”, “Plumbing pipe burst loss”

                    05 Supplier Selection

                    In terms of supplier selection, it is actually a more conventional part. It extracts the key elements that we are concerned about and selects the best supplier by scoring one by one after communicating with various insurance companies.

                    10 billion market, 10 times industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

                    06 Product development

                    This can be said to be our team’s area of ​​strength. I mentioned in an article about agile development that the ability to be agile is fast and good and can face changes flexibly. Training and practical exercises, the team’s agility has been greatly improved. At that time, I proposed a one-month online progress goal. The goal near the Spring Festival can be described as rigorous. The overall goal was divided into more than one hundred items The whole team maintained a high morale and proceeded in an orderly manner.

                    10 billion market, 10 times the industry conversion rate, what did we do right?

                    07 Marketing promotion

                    As mentioned earlier, the promotion strategy formulated by this product is:

                    Intermediate and short-term focus on high-risk conscious users, long-term popularity to all smart home users

                    In the early stage, we had multiple rounds of communication with the person in charge of the entrance app of our factory’s smart home, and continuously explained our product philosophy and the win-win space that this product can bring to both parties in the future. Finally, it was embedded in the smart home security equipment. A consensus was reached in the scene. Two types of equipment were selected for a small-scale grayscale test in the first phase, and then gradually released.

                    08 Write at the end

                    Although the entire product has been fully analyzed in the early stages, it feels logically impeccable, but I still feel a little embarrassed before I officially go online, because after all, this is a road that previous people never passed, and the product is almost close The double-digit conversion rate gave us the expected surprises. The right direction, the right method, and the right execution will definitely yield the right result.

                    The conversion rate proves that the product is “applauding” among users, but this product still leaves a lot of regrets in terms of “appealing”. Unfortunately, due to the”Yes” weakened the channel’s demand for profit. As a result, after the partner changed the person in charge, due to the “user-centric price-performance” pricing strategy, the profit left to the channel was too small, which was encountered in subsequent large-scale promotion It’s a hindrance. Since then, our “Seven Steps into Poems” on insurance products has officially taken shape, and a new important note has been added to this set of methods: “people and” (channel benefits)

                    10 billion market, 10 times the industry conversion rate, what did we do right?