Scaling empathy: the design of a multinational roadside assistance platform

Over the past few years, one of the world’s leading insurance groups has been reimagining the way it delivers services in the digital age. With mobility evolving rapidly and customer expectations rising just as fast, the company set out to transform its Motor line through smarter, more flexible digital experiences designed to meet users where they are—often, quite literally, stranded on the roadside.

This article looks at one of the cornerstone projects within that broader transformation: a digital solution created to streamline the way breakdown assistance is requested and managed. More than just a functional tool, the platform was conceived as a modular framework, enabling each country to craft a journey aligned with local behaviors and needs. What follows is the story of how this product took shape—from early concept to multinational rollout—and the design choices that made it work across borders.

Redefining roadside assistance: a digital shift towards speed and simplicity

In a rapidly evolving mobility landscape, the expectations of drivers are shifting just as fast as the vehicles they operate. Among those expectations, access to quick and seamless roadside assistance has transitioned from a bonus feature to a baseline requirement. It was within this context that we took on the challenge of designing and delivering a fully digital assistance journey—one capable of operating across diverse geographies and adaptable to the needs of a multinational ecosystem of providers and users.

The roadblock

The central challenge was deceptively simple: create a digital pathway for breakdown assistance that works across countries and partners. Beneath that simplicity lay layers of complexity—compliance requirements, user experience expectations, and the need to integrate with existing CMS platforms in multiple regions.

Designing the route

We adopted a mobile-first approach, acknowledging that emergencies rarely happen when users are at their desks. Each rollout began with a kick-off workshop to align local business, technical, and UX goals.

The solution was intentionally modular, giving each country the flexibility to shape its own journey. In some markets, users preferred to start by describing their issue; in others, the flow began with user identification or geolocation of the vehicle. This configurability proved critical in making the tool both locally relevant and globally scalable.

From a design standpoint, we built the foundation on a shared system of brand-aligned components, developed in collaboration between researchers, designers and front-end engineers. This allowed for a high degree of visual and functional consistency, while enabling business partners to adapt the interface to specific operational and cultural contexts. Whether it was color, tone of voice, or the way steps were structured, each adaptation stayed rooted in the company’s core values of reliability, simplicity, and care—values we ensured were reflected in every detail of the experience.

From there, the process unfolded through a series of structured steps:

1. Conceptual prototyping helped define and validate early ideas through tangible, low-fidelity models;
2. Information architecture and user flow design ensured clarity, efficiency, and logical progression in navigation;
3. A lean MVP design allowed the team to focus on core functionalities, while interactive prototypes enabled meaningful early-stage feedback;
4. User testing provided real-world insights that guided several rounds of design iterations;
5. Throughout the process, development support and data analysis were essential to maintaining alignment, velocity, and informed decisions.

Listening before building

Mapping the experience meant understanding everyone involved—drivers, agents, and providers. Our research focused not just on what the product needed to do, but on how it felt to use it under pressure. That emotional layer was central to a truly user-centered design.

To deepen this understanding, we also conducted job-shadowing sessions in several countries, spending time directly with call center agents who handle roadside assistance requests. By observing how they work—how they interact with customers, manage stress, navigate tools, and handle time-sensitive decisions—we uncovered pain points and operational realities that would never surface in a workshop. These insights proved invaluable for designing features that not only improved the end-user journey but also supported agents in delivering better service, faster and with fewer frustrations. This direct exposure helped ensure that human needs, not just functional requirements, drove our design decisions.

Testing, refining, repeating

Using low-fidelity clickable prototypes, we were able to uncover usability and compliance issues early, making it possible to course-correct before development began. This iterative process meant that every step forward was grounded in user feedback, not assumptions.

Delivery and outcomes

Thanks to the rigor of our early design work, the product was successfully deployed in six European countries: United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal. Each implementation responded to local constraints while preserving a consistent, high-quality experience.

By the numbers

To better illustrate the impact of the product during its early adoption phase, we created a visual breakdown of usage data from January to May 2020. This snapshot highlights performance across key markets and reveals patterns of user engagement over time.

Between January and May 2020, more than 33,000 digital cases were created—an average of 1,460 per month. Spain emerged as the leading market, with over 6,000 digital cases per month. These figures reflected not just strong usage, but also early validation of the experience strategy.

A growing footprint

What started as a focused rollout has grown into a truly global platform. The solution is now (as of May 2025) operational in Germany, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. This expansion confirms the product’s scalability and its capacity to adapt without losing coherence.

A personal note

Looking back, I feel proud to have laid the foundations of this global initiative. What began under my leadership as a UX lead has become a high-impact, widely adopted solution. Shaping its early direction and design remains one of the most meaningful milestones in my career.