Workplace benefit enrollment
redesign to increase auto-verification

The Problem

Fidelity lost its automated loan verification partner due to legislative changes, disrupting the student debt benefit enrollment process. When uploaded documents failed verification, they were sent to a manual review team with a 5-day response time via chat.

This created three critical issues: participants abandoned enrollment instead of returning to resolve issues, the resolution process was confusing and outdated, and manual reviews drove up operational costs significantly.

The Challenge

As the market leader in student debt workplace benefits, Fidelity faced mounting pressure as enrollment rates dropped and operational costs threatened profitability. The business model — priced per enrolled participant — made every abandonment costly.

But clients were also vocal about enrolling the right participants. The solution needed to guide users to correct documents, extract loan data automatically, and provide real-time feedback — all while getting to market quickly to meet key enrollment KPIs.

Alignment & Strategy

I started by meeting with stakeholders to understand business challenges and align on a shared vision. From there, I developed a phased experience strategy that balanced business needs with user goals.

Frequent touchpoints with technology and business partners kept momentum. Given the fast-moving environment, I ran a high-intensity discovery phase — auditing existing work, reviewing the competitive landscape, and exploring technical feasibility — simultaneously.

Our goals

Research & Analysis

Vision

Through collaborative workshops with technical and business partners, we identified 3 key solutions to improve the user experience, meet internal goals, and address client concerns.

Our vision was to guide users to correct documentation and provide immediate feedback when loan verification failed, while displaying extracted data to eliminate manual entry.