Thrivent Financial

Marriage Vitality Platform

Exploring current and future needs of married couples

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Thrivent, a mission-driven financial services organization, sought to explore the viability of an insurance and investment product aimed at improving the relationships of its married member-owners.

Field Research

Using research gathered from in-person interviews, we learned how couples – and their support network – defined strong marriages, dealt with challenges, and who they turned to for support.

Minneapolis

  • 5 married couples


  • 1 engaged couple

  • 
2 divorced individuals

  • 
1 advisor 


  • 2 pastors

Orange County

  • 5 married couples

  • 
1 engaged couple

  • 
2 divorced individuals

  • 
2 advisors


  • 2 pastors

Atlanta
  • 7 married couples


  • 1 engaged couple


  • 3 advisors 


  • 2 pastors

Synthesizing Findings

Defining our users, represented by a set of personas and journey maps, helped guide team during critical product decision-making moments.

Unpacking the research and creating artifacts helped provide valuable context to our client collaborators and a shared understanding of prospective customers and their relationship needs. 

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Prioritization

Initial research revealed possible challenges couples face in their relationships.

Brainstorming with clients helped everyone agree on the problems worth solving and generate viable and desirable ideas for building stronger marriages. Stakeholder sessions also helped prioritize themes to address in our concept.

Key Problems to Solve

  • Problem #1: Marriage is very complex and there is no single action or support system available to make it strong
  • Problem #2: Existing support networks are often under-equipped to respond to the complexity of marriage needs
Opportunities and Goals
  • Build a support system

  • Improve interpersonal communication

  • Remove stigma from seeking help

  • Develop partnering skills together

  • Spend time together

  • Learn vital marriage skills

  • Align common goals

  • Practice faith together

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Framework Development 

Designing a program model capable of evolving to meet the needs of couples and coaches throughout all phases of marriage.

Our service would seek to optimize for jobs to be done by our key people (couples, their relatives, and coaches). It would also leverage Thrivent's established faith-based values.

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Prototyping & Testing

We facilitated a process of designing, prototyping, and testing to produce a digital service to connect couples with coaches, and coaches with clients.

Couples were engaged to better understand how our solution might be used for handling marriage's challenging moments and if a coaching service could be useful for short- and long-term growth.

We facilitated tests with coaches to gain a better understanding how our services and feature might fit within their practice, meet business needs, and gauge the desirability of a virtual model of coaching.

Matchmaking Feature

Credentialing for coaches makes it possible to align every couple’s preference with available coaches trained to best meet their needs.

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Couples, or individuals, choose coaches whose profile represents the best fit for their need.

Help Requests and Appointments Feature

Relationship issue documentation provides couples with opportunities to engage with program aides to manage issues on their own or to inform their coach when they need more personalized assistance.

Progress Tracking and Growth Features

The coaching platform goes beyond managing a coach’s business; its tools and resources allow coaches to monitor the relationships of their couples, pinpoint areas of improvement, and prioritize opportunities for their personal and professional development. 

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Support relevant and timely coaching opportunities for couples when a little extra guidance is most valued.

Synthesized Feedback

Taking the feedback from our moderated prototype testing with coaches, we crafted user stories. These stories not only helped socialize the need for ongoing development and evaluation but also highlighted potential gaps that could hinder adoption. 

As a coach, when I want to…

  • acquire clients, I want to understand their needs, so that I can build a coaching program specifically for them.
  • refer couples, I want access to a trusted network of coaches and counselors, so that I can be confident I am helping couples get the help they need to sustain their marriage. 
  • collect resources, I want easy access to a curated library of resources, so that I can focus my energy on coaching. 
  • schedule and track appointments, I want a system that integrates with my preferred calendars so that I can manage all my schedule in one place.
  • manage finances, I want a summary of a couple's completed and pending coaching sessions, so I know what I have earned and can forecast future earnings from each couple. 
  • track a couple’s progress, I want insight into their program engagement, so that I can prompt and guide them before our next session. 
  • find a mentor, I want someone that I know personally, so that I can be confident of their suggestions and feedback.