In April 2011, Equator was tasked by Health-on-line to design and develop their new website, paying particular attention to creating a quote-and-buy tool which clearly communicated the flexibility of their modular product and helped users feel in control of their choice by understanding exactly what it was they were buying.

It also had to be effective enough to collect more visitor names and contact details, improve the lead development process and raise the visit-to-lead rate by at least 50% in the first 8 weeks after launch.

Our job was to do the following:

• Create the best quote-and-buy tool ever
• Increase lead generation
• Help Health-on-line boost sales

Putting the user in charge of price was going to be a game changer.

We began by reviewing the product and online selection process, given the central role this has to play in lead management. The quote-and-buy tool would Health-on-lined the key to the product's success.

Initial consumer research revealed how people search for health insurance online. Consumers typically look at 8-10 providers and compare cover and price. However, it is difficult to compare as these are not presented uniformly, so the process is frustrating. Ideally users would prefer to define their own specification.

Complexity in HEALTH-ON-LINE's quote-and-buy tool was a major obstacle to success. Consumers didn't understand the choices on offer, partly due to layout, partly in the way they were described. Getting the language right in insurance is difficult, thanks to many compliance constraints; but we thought there must be a way to do this in plain English.

We decided that the quote-and-buy tool should be presented as simply as possible and placed on the homepage to ensure that no-one missed it. We did not want to risk losing leads by forcing users to click through to it.

Once users arrive at their quote, they are able to play with the price. The initial price is attractively low, but not as low as it can be, allowing users the opportunity to reduce it further by changing aspects such as the excess. They can also raise the price by adding various extras to personalise their cover.

Once we had our basic design for the quote-and-buy tool, the next step was to test it as a working prototype. A set of tasks was designed for the prototype to examine each stage of the quote-and-buy process in usability testing.

Users loved being in charge of the price - this was something they couldn't get elsewhere. It made them feel in control. Users were impressed that overall, the process was very manageable and straightforward - something they had never experienced with any of HEALTH-ON-LINE's competitors.

The quote-and-buy tool was designed to create more leads for HEALTH-ON-LINE and we were confident it would do exactly that.

Of course the quote-and-buy tool was not the only significant improvement on the new website. It was vital to ensure that the site was optimised for key health insurance search terms, delivering more leads into the quote-and-buy tool. We ensured this by writing content around key comparison and health insurance search terms.

The result

There was a huge rise in the visit-to-lead rate from launch in September - from 4.7% pre-launch to 8.6% in the first month. Between December and January, we managed to raise this much further from 8.1% to 23.3%. This represents a staggering 500% increase in visit-to-lead conversions.

During the campaign, Health-on-line gained 10,000 new leads, compared to the pre-launch average of 6,000. This led to extra revenue of £400,000 - a significant increase indeed.

 The site was also awarded the Plain English Internet Crystal Mark. None of the major health insurers currently hold this accolade.

We couldn't be more pleased with this result. We're happy, the client is happy and evidently, so are Health-on-line's customers!