Background
AARP's CX Standards were developed 2018. But a lot has happened since then…
Project Goal
Given the cultural and societal shifts over the past few years, pulse-check the resonance of the Consumer Experience Standards to identify areas for revision or further exploration.
Learning about aging and life transitions
North Star Vision
A report from the Stanford Center for Longevity informed our north star vision: a "longevity-ready society"
Longer Lives: Human life expectancies doubled between 1900 and 2000, increasing more in a single century than across all prior millennia of human evolution combined.
Outdated Institutions: The dramatic acceleration in life expectancy during the 20th century happened so quickly that the social institutions, economic policies, and social norms that evolved when people lived for half as long are no longer up to the task. As a result, we’re spending these longer lives stressed out by the pressures of conforming to systems that don’t really fit.
Developing a POV: After establishing our north star, our preferable future, I developed a framework with 6 vectors to illustrate what a ‘longevity-ready society’ might look like.
Highlighting Shifts: I always find it useful to identify macro shifts. A simple way to summarize big ideas and focus on what is actually changing.
Connecting with AARP members
6 in-home interviews with individuals and married couples
2 focus groups with NPS promoters & detractors
1 member survey
Research Goal: Engage directly with members to understand their evolving functional, emotional, and experiential needs, as well as their attitudes and behaviors around aging. Assess whether the AARP CX Standards still resonate, and if so, how to better bring them to life and increase connection among current and potential members.
Pre-work Assignment
Share an object or image that represents what getting older means
What have you stopped, changed, and started (doing, thinking, feeling)
Write a love letter about your relationship with AARP
Discussion Guide
Warm Up: Learn about the member and what they care about
Getting Older: Elicit a metaphor to understand what aging means to them
Evolving Through Life: What attitudes and behavior have changed?
Experience w/ Organization: What has their experience with AARP been like?
Stimulus Activities: Each session ended with a card sort. The words on the cards were extracted from the existing CX standards.
Debrief Themes: After each session, I facilitated conversations with the client about the participants, opportunities or problems for the brand, and references to trends.
Synthesising data and developing insights
Insight Statements: After the interviews, I summarized notes and clustered quotes into key themes. I then wrote crisp insight statements, cut video clips, and created trend slides to support each insight.
STRATEGY
Brand Target
After synthesizing the insights, I created an aspirational target the company can design for. The “Modern Middlescent” is a play on adolescence – a new life stage based on physical and emotional changes.
Solution Principles
I then wrote solution principles to connect with “The Modern Middlescent.”
Take the insights → Turn them into instructions for updating the CX Standards.
