Lithys 2017: H&R Block- Digital Design Excellence

Lithys 2017: H&R Block- Digital Design Excellence

Every change to the H&R Block Community was intentionally based on how our clients want to do business with us, so we were eager to get into the 2017 tax season and see how our changes performed.

 

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HRBlock_Teaser.pngCompany:  H&R Block                                                        

Entry submitted by: Matt Ceule; Jillian Bejtlich (Enterprise Community Strategist; Community Architect) 

Community: H&R Block Community

Lithy category:  Digital Design Excellence

 

The digital goals we had with our Lithium-powered platform

When H&R Block embarked on its community initiative in 2013, the H&R Block Community was founded with the intention of providing clients a welcoming space to talk about the implications of taxes year-round. What happens if I buy a house or get married? How does having a baby or adopting affect my taxes?

 

The H&R Block Community was never intended to replace or impact H&R Block’s client services, but as it grew and matured it evolved from a community of practice to a highly effective and widely utilized client self-service knowledge base. Our clients needed a different way to access help – regardless of the time of day, complexity of the question, or how long the wait time was for phone or chat support.

 

We delivered. We kept listening. And we kept trying new things.

 

After four tax seasons, our digital approach and goals had matured alongside our community strategy. We found ourselves looking to fulfill three new goals as we looked forward to our fifth tax season with the H&R Block Community.

  1. Focus on how we know our clients interact with us – instead of how we think or want them to interact.
  2. Provide the most value with the least amount of effort and frustration. Be the opposite of what our audience is accustom to.
  3. Make updating and working with our community platform accessible to every member of our community staff – regardless of technical ability 

 

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How our design stands out

Re-designing our community in 2016 proved to be a challenge and learning experience for all involved. While we wanted to utilize all the newest and most interesting Lithium features, we had to find a delicate balance. Therefore, every design idea had to pass three tests before we considered implementation.

  1. Is this feature something our clients want or need?
  2. Does this feature help move the community in the correct direction?
  3. Is this feature accessible and easy to use for all involved?

Thus, the most innovative features of the H&R Block Community are paradoxically the simplest. They are easy to use, easy to update, and feasible for other Lithium communities to implement regardless of technical skill.

Featured Topic Bubbles

The most popular update we implemented this season was featured topic bubbles on every board and the landing page. This took the place of the standard featured topics module. It utilizes an out of the box content module combined with basic HTML and an attractive design.HR2.png

Avatar Collection

Another popular update has been a more personal one. To remind our audience the community is made up of other people – just like them – we introduced an extensive avatar collection replacing the default Lithium collection. Members are given the option of forty avatars of all demographics to give everyone else a little glimpse into who makes up the community.

  

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 Community Staff Quick Links

We also worked to ensure our interface served our community team and super users around the country. The thing they wanted the most was ways to moderate more effectively and find people who needed help. We delivered with four simple buttons. These buttons go right to the internal associate community, unread posts, recent posts, and unanswered questions.

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How we executed our design

Before any wireframes could be sketched or code written, we wanted to ensure we had an excellent grasp on who was using the H&R Block Community, why they were using it, and what they wanted out of their experience. We utilized an exercise developed by the team at The Community Roundtable to help us find the information we needed.

 

This exercise is built to help communities explore their audience, behavior loops, and ideal metrics to track activities. We ended up with nearly a dozen different persona tracks (two are shown below); however, they nearly all fit into just a few use cases and behavior loops.

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From there, we took the most common behaviors and looked to see if our metrics validated our suspicions – and they did with 100% certainty. This helped us narrow down what our new design needed to do well and refine our digital goals.

 

How we measured and tracked

The H&R Block Community team is no stranger to metrics. After winning the Social ROI Titan Lithy in 2016, we continued to track ROI and numerous other behaviors to help us measure progress, discover trends, and refine our methods.

 

Every change to the H&R Block Community was intentionally based on how our clients want to do business with us, so we were eager to get into the 2017 tax season and see how our changes performed. In short, they were very effective.

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We are thoroughly pleased with how the H&R Block Community performed this tax season. We continue to look forward to many more years of successful community building and helping millions of clients, potential clients, and associates.