Avoiding post-launch remediation for a new
wealth management program.
The Wealth Management team created a new program for mass affluent clients focusing on helping clients pursue their goals with the support of a dedicated banker and advisor team and they wanted to validate collateral before an in-market pilot. As the lead researcher on this project, I created the overall testing strategy, conducted the research, and reported the results to the executive leadership team.
OVERVIEWThe Objective
The team created collateral for bankers to use during their client’s first visit to help them learn enough about the bank and its products to want to bring their investments to the bank. However, the team hadn’t conducted any testing to evaluate its success as a sales and communications piece with clients. Our goal was to test the collateral and provide user-centered recommendations to improve the user experience.
The initial target audience was the President of Wealth Management and the Head of Strategic Execution for the consumer bank, focusing on conducting user-centered research to improve the overall program before launch.
The Results
13+ identified improvement opportunities
The collateral was completely revamped to address gaps and opportunities
Avoided going to market with ineffective materials
Obtained user insights that could be applied to broader program enhancements
Strengthened banker and advisor support and goodwill by engaging them in the process
Led to additional research / testing engagements with this team during the rollout of the program (diary study, focus groups, and in-depth interviews)
The creation and launch of the program won a Chairman’s Award in January 2024
My Role
I was the Lead Researcher on this project. My responsibilities and design activities included:
Establishing the testing plan and project plan
Developing a prototype of the proposed collateral that could be used for testing
Leading in-depth interviews with Private Client Bankers, Advisors, and Relationship Managers
Testing the proposed materials using a role-play activity to uncover pain points and opportunities
Reporting progress weekly to the executive stakeholders
Synthesizing and reporting testing results to executive stakeholders
Leading junior researcher
Collaborating with the marketing team
THE PROCESSAn iterative, human-centered approach to problem-solving
Phase 4: Prototype
The marketing team was in charge of creating the collateral for the program. I took their initial draft of the first visit collateral and created a working prototype for the testing.
Phase 5: Test
Once the prototype was ready for testing I scheduled a total of 15 interviews with a mix of bankers and advisors. Each interview session was scheduled for 90 minutes to allow for a role-play exercise and a debrief/interview. The overall objective of the sessions was to:
Observe
Have bankers/advisors pilot the collateral either with clients or though a role play to get a better sense of what’s working well and what can be improved.
Interview
Debrief with bankers/advisors to get insights into how they felt the experience went and how it can be used to meet their goals
Provide user-centered recommendations
Provide recommendations to improve our collateral including any suggestions for follow-up testing to further ideate on this artifact or focus on other facets of the experience.
Due to privacy reasons, we weren’t able to include clients in theses sessions so we decided to have the bankers and advisors go through a role play exercise where either myself or the designer on my team acted as the client while the other took notes. This allowed us to observe and experience the “client” interaction as well as debrief with the bankers and advisors to get their perspective as well.
Since this was a new program being created and neither our bankers nor advisors were familiar with any of the details of this new program, these sessions required a lot of preparation in order to get them briefed and ready for the role play / testing. I created a series of communications and materials to make sure they had enough information about the program to feel comfortable participating.
Not only were these sessions extremely insightful, they also provided us with a way to get some of our bankers and advisors involved in the creation of the project, ultimately strengthening their support in the program.
Some of the key insights from the research included the following:
Insight # 1
Flexibility is crucial because the client leads the conversation.
Bankers and advisors tailor their process for each client so they requested the ability to choose the order of the content in the collateral or skip around to be responsive to the client’s interests. This insight provided an opportunity to provide high-level categories in the collateral to make it easier to jump between sections and tailor the experience for clients based on their area of interest.
Insight # 2
Paper is ubiquitous and reliable; technology is impersonal.
During our testing, almost all bankers brought the collateral printed out and took notes by hand. When asked about it, they mentioned that clients need to feel like they have the full attention of their bankers / advisors, and technology is usually seen as a barrier to that. They also felt like technology in their branches wasn’t consistent and was often unreliable. This insight provided an opportunity to create an easy-to-print or email one-page summary for clients to refer to after the meeting.
Insight #3
The collateral is just one part of the experience advisors and bankers create for clients.
Clients are reluctant to change and building trust is crucial. Consequently, bankers and advisors spend time “warming up” clients so that questions about finances and family don’t feel intrusive. The advisors and bankers we spoke to wanted to create an experience where clients feel special, preselected, and taken care of. This insight provided an opportunity to include more banker/advisor information in the collateral like photos, names, and short bios. There was also an opportunity to add content that emphasizes why clients have qualified for this program.
The insights and user-centered recommendations were presented to our stakeholders and the core program team. The audience was very receptive and proceeded to completely revamp the collateral and experience.
THE IMPACTThe insights and recommendations led to a complete revamp of the collateral to address the gaps and opportunities identified during our testing. This helped avoid going to market with ineffective materials leading to a poor client experience and a potentially unsuccessful program.
Having bankers and advisors participate in the testing also helped strengthen their support in the program once again helping with the overall success of the program.
The success of the testing also led to additional research / testing engagements with the team including conducting focus groups and in-depth interviews with bankers and advisors during the training period and a diary study with clients during the rollout of the program. Each of these engagements contributed to an overall better experience for both clients and bankers / advisors.
In January 2024, the program won a Chairman’s award for best-in-class program execution and launch.