The onboarding process ran on emails and spreadsheets. Only 32% of clients filled out the spreadsheet correctly. Some sent a separate email for every single benefit. We built the system that replaced all of it.
My role
Lead UX/UI Designer
Client
Web Benefits Design
Timeline
Oct 2019 – Jul 2020
Team
Designer, PM, front-end developer
Outcomes
32%
of clients filled out the spreadsheet correctly
20%
sent a separate email per benefit. 10+ per client.
3mo
max configuration time for complex clients
5/mo
new clients added. The team was already overwhelmed.
The problem
A growing team held together with email threads and spreadsheets
As the configuration team grew, the cracks in their process became impossible to ignore. Client onboarding ran entirely through email and Excel. Clients received a spreadsheet, filled it out (or didn’t), sent it back (or sent 10 emails instead), and the internal team spent weeks chasing down missing information and copy-pasting data between systems.
The business was adding around five new clients a month. The process didn’t scale. Something had to change.
Due dates went unnoticed or ignored. No visibility into what was outstanding.
Only ~32% of clients filled out the spreadsheet correctly on the first try
~20% of clients sent a separate email for each benefit offering. Easily 10+ per client.
Configuration time ranged from 2 weeks to 3 months depending on complexity
Massive amounts of copy-paste between systems. Slow, error-prone, manual.
More departments were involved than anyone had mapped. The problem was bigger than it looked.
Discovery
Shadowing the people actually living this process
My first instinct was to talk to external clients, but the timeline didn’t allow for it. So I focused on what I could access: internal account executives. I shadowed two of them, watched them work, and took notes without interrupting.
What I expected to be a two-user, one-department problem turned out to be much larger. Multiple departments touched the same client data. The email chain wasn’t just messy. It was a shared system of record that nobody had designed. Once I saw that, I knew we needed a service blueprint before we could design anything.
I requested access to the actual email templates and Excel spreadsheets used across every department with client interactions. That’s what told me the real scope of the problem, not the initial brief.
Internal user
Account executives
Managing onboarding and renewals for multiple clients simultaneously. Chasing information, manually entering data, handling a constant stream of emails.
External user
HR admins
Responsible for providing benefit configuration data. Often confused by the spreadsheet format, prone to sending incomplete information or communicating through email instead.
Data retrieval journey map
Onboarding steps diagram
Information gathering flow
The solution
A cloud platform built around how people actually work
The team aligned on a cloud-based communication and intake management platform. The goal was to replace the email and spreadsheet workflow with a structured, transparent system that both internal and external users could navigate without training overhead. Future-state integration with the existing suite of applications went into the backlog. For this phase, we focused on getting the core workflow right.
1
Progress dashboard with completion tracking
HR admins could see exactly what sections were still incomplete. Account executives could see where clients were in the process without sending a follow-up email. Due dates surfaced prominently so nothing slipped through.
2
Section locking: a signal, not a blocker
External users could lock a section once it was complete, signaling to the internal team that data was ready for review. Unlocking was always possible. This created shared visibility without creating friction.
3
Communication notes: the email killer
A dedicated space for all communication tied to the client record. External and internal users shared one thread. Internal teams could also communicate privately, shielded from external view. Follow-up dates, participant search, file uploads, all built in.
4
Minimized data entry through pattern recognition
Every employer is different, but benefit plans share patterns. The system was built to surface those similarities and reduce unnecessary duplication, cutting down how much an HR admin had to manually enter from scratch.
Dashboard. Progress view with completion status and due date countdown.
Plan and carrier information page
Communication notes. Threaded by client.
Learnings
What this project taught me
1
The most affected users aren't always the most visible ones. I started by focusing on internal account executives. They were the ones in the room. But the real pain was being felt by external HR admins who had no voice in the process. Redirecting toward them mid-project was the right call.
2
Shadow first, ask questions later. Watching account executives actually work, not hearing them describe their work, is what revealed the true scope of the problem. The service blueprint wouldn't have happened otherwise.
3
Good prioritization is a design skill. A lot of ideas made it onto the whiteboard that never made it into the product. Collaborative scoping sessions with the team, weighing cost, time, and value together, kept us from building too much and shipping nothing.
