Studying Competition & User Perceptions – Bundling in Banking
Sales & Onboarding - Primary UX Research
What is the project about?
Client is an American bank holding company and is the fifth largest banking institution in the United States. The company provides banking, investment, mortgage, trust, and payment services products to individuals, businesses, governmental entities, and other financial institutions.
The business team is developing a Multi-Product Apply/Cross Sell interface that will allow Banking Customers/phone banking reps to pick multiple products/services at once and apply for them using a single application form, on the bank’s .com website.
Business challenge
The business team is developing a Multi-Product Apply/Cross-Sell interface
This will allow customers/phone banking reps to apply for multiple products/services at once
Understanding user perceptions & competitor benchmarking
Goal of the project
Find out if users are aware and/or receptive of bundling multiple banking products
Understand customer behavior when it comes to selecting multiple products
Determine what are product combinations that consumers generally would like to bundle together as package
Understand users’ demographic data enabling us to identify needs and map them to various user segments
Tools
Figma
UserZoom
Miro
Team
UX Researcher (me)
Lead UX Designer
Associate UX Designer
Product Leads
My Role
Competitive Benchmarking
Quantitative Research Study
Insights & Recommendations
Defining User Persona
Designing UX Prototype
Timeline
Overall: 3+ weeks (part of a Lean UX process)
Discovery & Research: 2 weeks
Design iterations: 1 week
Experience Design Research Process
Competitor Analysis
The objective of conducting competitive benchmarking research is to gain insights into how other banks offer multi-product applications, how users select multiple products, and how the cross-selling experience works. This research aims to compare the bank's performance and offerings with its competitors, identify areas of improvement, and adopt best practices in multi-product applications and cross-selling.
By analyzing the user experience of competitors, we could make informed decisions about the journey and experiences.
Screener & Questionnaire Design
Upon finalizing the research plan in collaboration with the team, I proceeded to develop the screener and questionnaire for the study, utilizing the User Zoom research platform.
To ensure the validity and efficacy of the questionnaire, a trial study was conducted with a sample group of respondents, during which the mock questionnaire was tested and refined, as necessary. Subsequently, modifications were made to the questionnaire based on the findings of the trial study.
“I want to take things one at a time and think about the products I’d like to get individually.”
“I prefer to keep financial products separate from one another as to prevent confusion and to only purchase those items in which I truly deem necessary.”
Research Methodology & Participants
I designed the research on UserZoom with 76 participants across the United States of America to understand their perceptions about bundling.
Research Findings & Insights
Checking, Savings, Credit Card followed by Car Loan, Mortgage and Personal Line of Credit were among the top ranked products that users preferred to bundle together
On average, respondents owned about four products
About 3 in 5 respondents prefer or are interested in bundled products if their bank offers them
Key reasons for bundling – easy & efficient management leading to better control and convenience, rewards & benefits from bundling
Recommendations & Best Practices
Drawing on insights gained from the competitor benchmarking research study, I developed a high-level user journey for the web platform, focused on bundling products together and simplifying the application process.
Checking, Savings, Credit Card followed by Car Loan, Mortgage and Personal Line of Credit were among the top ranked products that users preferred to bundle together
Checking followed by Credit Card and Savings are the most common bank products owned by respondents who prefer or are interested in bundled products, which they mostly monitor Online followed by Mobile app/web
On average, respondents owned about four products
About 3 in 5 respondents prefer or are interested in bundled products if their bank offers them
Key reasons for bundling – easy & efficient management leading to better control and convenience, rewards & benefits from bundling
Less than 25% respondents were willing for their bank to share your information with external platforms or services to offer them better bundled banking products (Open Banking)
J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America are primary banks to respondents who prefer or are interested in bundled products, where almost 3 in 4 respondents have a tenure of 10+ years with the bank
Design an intuitive interface that requires minimal learning curve for users to apply for multiple products together
Users might get intrigued to bundling products if they are offered benefits for doing so
“Want to be able to have things at the same bank so it’s easier to manage”
“I would think that it would be easier to have all my financial items in one place.”
“If there are special benefits to the bundle.”
Defining User Personas and Prototype
With the insights learnt through primary research, we defined personas to highlight the multiple needs and frustrations of the existing customers. This helped us to brainstorm on our design decisions to cater to scenarios and priority content.
We also took this opportunity to define a high-level user touchpoints focusing on bundling scenario.
We proposed a design POC of smart recommendation engine to suggest only those packages or individual products that are logically personalized to the customers in bundling and applying together.
