Remote Disaster Analysis, 2020
Increased scalability and engagement to report the status of remote farms, with the purpose of de-risking farmers
Team
Product Manager
1 engineer
Product Designer
My Role
Execution
Product Design
Information Architecture
Qualitative Research
Dev Handoff
Duration
4 months
Background
In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, a farmer programme by the name of CBN: Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) had faced a challenge with mobilizing ground agents to monitor ongoing risks that their farmers faced. Pula was tasked with understanding and reporting on the state of approximately 400,000 Nigerian’s farms.
Problem Statement
CBN: Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) had difficulties conducting in-person visits due to Covid-19 regulations. Due to this, Smallholder farmers had little to no effective direct line of communication to highlight environmental risks they faced.
Without proper communication, during the season, the client would be unaware of affected regions and would mistakenly label farmers that are unable to pay back loans due to environmental risks as defaulters.
Sneak Peak
Newspaper excerpt:
- The Nation, Nigeria
Process
“If the rains spoil our picnic, but save a farmer’s crop, who are we to say it shouldn’t rain?”
Based on my experience in the field, guided by the quote above, my design process is less rigid and more free-flowing in order to design and implement around limitations. To deliver products/solutions to farmers and clients while they are still relevant.
Research
Key findings that drove ideation included:
In Nigeria, basic phone penetration among sampled farmers was high, with 98% reporting they owned a phone of which 17% shared ownership, mostly with a relative.
Most farmers were unaware of the insurance that came bundled with the programme. With a farmer claiming “We need enlightenment. Most people don’t know about the insurance.”
In Nigeria, trust is not something that is easily earned. Some farmers would rather have information readily available, adequately educated, and proactive nature to communication.
Ideation
We wanted to utilize cost-effective means of communication that would still reach a large number of smallholder farmers. While utilizing a feedback loop that farmers would reply to with near-zero effort included.
Testing & Iterations
Iteration 1 - One-way SMS and Call Center
The message reads:
Your CBN-ABP loan provides insurance from Veritas & Leadway. Protecting you against risk of low yields. Flash 08126273877/09075160672 to enquire.
With our initial test of 1,000 farmers, the average response rate we received from the farmers was 2.7%. The issue that abundantly became clear was that a call center team would need to scale drastically to cover the number of calls a group of 400k would make.
Iteration 2 - One-way SMS and USSD (w/ follow up by Call Center)
With a call to action of a USSD code instead. The USSD would act as an interaction platform for farmers to share the main issue that they faced in the season. Depending on the answer shared they would be put on a Call Center waitlist with a 48-hour callback guarantee.
BUT… after scaling up to 50,000 farmers, we quickly realized that the call center team of 4 was unable to keep up with the growing backlog of expected dials back.
Iteration 3 - One-way SMS and USSD (as a Standalone w/ Insurance information)
Important info: Your CBN-ABP loan provides insurance that protects you against the risk of low yields. Dial *347*767# for FREE to see its benefits.
Important info: ← to drive urgency
CBN-ABP loan ← to lead cognitive recollection with the source
Dial *347*767# for free ← to take out any assumed charges to quench their curiosity.
Key Decisions
Addition of Frequently Asked Questions - I wanted to reduce the number of dials received only to intricate information while providing most of the FAQ content via USSD.
Insurance Awareness - I opted to provide Insurance information after the risk stated instead of having tied to one of the options within the risk section - due to the lack of information highlighted in the research findings.
Option for “No Issue” on the risks screen - this was a key design decision to not force a farmer to pick out an issue if they were not affected by any and give an avenue for farmers to still proceed to the content available afterward.
On the last design decision, we thought of testing out the USSD as part of the insurance claims process. This included breaking down based on the Risk faced response, a farmer would be informed that their claim has been processed.
Then we launched the SMS and USSD with the rest of the farmers.
Final Outcome
Findings
Upon looking through the raw data, we noticed a phenomenon that had arisen. Some farmers would dial the USSD code multiple times. One farmer memorably dialed more than 331 times. While upon parsing the quantitative data, I picked out farmers to conduct on-call interviews. These farmers had dialled more than 180 times and picked out two or more issues between Floods, Drought, and Pest and Diseases.
To uncover the reason behind this, I conducted 17 successful qualitative research calls. The findings gathered included:
“The more I dialed, the higher the chance of getting a payout, isn’t that how the insurance works?” Some farmers understood the call to action as a necessary requirement to possibly receive a payout at the end of the season.
“It’s pretty bad here, I thought that if I dialed enough times, it would draw attention to the issues we face here”. Whilst other farmers had seen it as an avenue to have their voices heard.
Final Design
Due to the findings gathered, there were design decisions made to better the USSD flow, namely:
Claims - we took out the mention of claims after a farmer would report their issue. To avoid misinforming farmers.
Issue reported - we changed the wording of the screen from “Help us understand if you have experienced issues this season.” to “Help us understand if you have experienced issues this season. Pick your biggest issue” to reduce the number of repeat dials that change issues.
The number of dials - in addition, we reduced the number of dials one number can make to 4 dials.
Impact
45.3% - USSD dials highlighting floods in their area.
With states such as Kano, Bauchi, and Taraba registering a large number of reports.
With data on the various states that were affected by the adverse risks before the harvest period. CBN: Anchor Borrowers Programme was well informed of the flooding catastrophe ahead of time. Leading to insurance payouts paid to affected farmers.
