Setting the scene

The financial sector is one that is increasingly being disrupted by digital alternatives. New entrants in the market are offering easy to use digital platforms that reduce the barriers for retail investors to enter the investment market. These alternatives are offering low fee, no/low minimum investment amounts and education without all the jargon resulting in an increasing need for established organisations to respond with their own digital offering. Digital platforms not only offer current customers new ways to manage their investments they are also valuable tools to tap into new customer segments and sources of revenue.

The Project

Redesign a customer portal for an Australian mortgage securities lender and investment firm. With a long, successful history dating back to the 1920s this firm was seeking to respond to the changing landscape in the financial sector by improving their digital customer experience and reducing barriers for retail consumers to invest.

The redevelopment of the online portal started with a design phase that followed the double diamond framework and then moved into a technical scoping and a collaborative build. My involvement in the project was as principle CX researcher in the discover and define phases of the design process, designing and undertaking the research activities which included 1:1 interviews, stakeholder workshops, competitor and landscape analysis and analysis of the analytics of the existing customer portal.

I then worked alongside another CX Designer and UX Lead during the develop and deliver phases to design and test prototypes and create wireframes that were used as the basis for the UI design. Once the design phase was completed my involvement in the project was to advise and consult with the UI Designer, Business Analysts and tech teams during the scoping and build, sharing customer insights and championing the voice of the customer to help with decision making.

Customer experience problem

During the discovery phase one of the key areas that we focused on exploring was how the redesigned portal could fit more seamlessly into the broader service offering and facilitate servicing more customers as acquisition efforts in new segments came to fruition.

Through the research it became evident that what the current customer base, who were mainly retirees with self managed super funds, valued most was the customer service which they were receiving. This was seen as highly personalised and offering a lot of expertise as well as seamless account management. The challenge for the organisation was that this customer service was being delivered through high touch, time consuming activities like phone calls and in person meetings which would not be feasible as the customer base grew.

This provided an interesting design challenge for the online portal. There was a customer base with lower levels of digital literacy and a preference for more traditional communications method and a high touch customer experience that was delivering them high levels of value.

The customer experience opportunity

With the understanding of the value of the customer service offer and the need to make more effective use of customer service representatives time the role of the redesigned portal became to facilitate the administrative processes. Focusing on the aspects of account management that could be automated and those that didn’t require personalised oversight it would become a customers administrative assistant allowing customer service representatives more time and space to offer personalised expertise to more customers.

Key design considerations

With a customer base of predominantly retirees with self managed super funds there were lower levels of digital literacy and confidence using digital tools. This resulted in come key considerations being incorporated throughout the design process;

• There should be no assumed knowledge so onboarding into process, features and functionality needed to be comprehensive

• Tooltips and help text should always be easily available

• Accessibility should be at the heart of all design decisions

• Wherever possible there should be options to download and print so that customers had the option of reading content and managing documentation within their current preferred processes