Future of Mobile Financial Services

A CASE STUDY in user experience by BSG

UXD What do users need?

Traditionally, business change has focused on ’bridging the gap’

between Business and IT

With the advent

of mobile financial services, that has all

changed

BUSINESS IT

Customers were typically considered to be ignorant (‘our customers don’t know what they want’), options for meeting these ignorant needs were limited, and there was neither an

effective mechanism for them to provide their negative feedback, nor an easy way to vote with their feet by changing service

providers

What does that mean for

change?

Mobile Financial Services

MOBILE = FUTURE

Convergence of industries – many, many competitors

and options

1. Customers have choice!2. They are now empowered to act

on these choices – innovators like FNB have made it easier for clients

to move banks

Facebook and Twitter are far more visible and effective

than Hello Peter ever was

Customers want to choose from a range of channels They will choose a service provider based on which channels they wish to be served through

SWITCHING

T

E

C

H

N

O

L

O

G

Y

Customer feedback

MOBILE = FUTURE

• They must be economically viable for the business

• They must be feasible and sustainable in terms of the technology used to enable the change

• MOST IMPORTANTLY: They must meet the needs of their users and customers, or they’ll never be used!

Customer

IT BUSINESS

CHANGE

What does this mean for how we now

create change?

Need to ensure that innovation and change meets three levels of

acceptance:

In order to do this, a new set of capabilities are required

• Business Analysis

• Project Management

• Waterfall SDLC

• Elaborate plans and multi-year roadmaps

• Rigorous business cases made up of significant models based on mythical assumptions of growth and profitability

• Fully developed, fully internally tested and aggressively marketed release V 1.0

• Massive investment in training users

• Significant hope that this will work for the business, but no certainty

• Business Analysis + UXD – design is at least as important as function

• Agile approaches (e.g. Scrum) to manage delivery progress incrementally and visually

• Epics, story boards, sprints and burn down charts

• Business Model Canvases and UVPs

• Customer development feedback data on experiments

• MVPs

• Intuitive design means no (little) training

• Confidence that this works for the customer, and therefore for the business!

Mobile Financial Services

The Old?

The New!

Understanding the needs of mobile

application solution users

Vision for the organisation:

To expand their sales force, get up to speed with competitors and make the process a bit easier for the advisors, through the use of mobile technology. When you’re visiting clients in the mines, hospitals and informal settlements of deep rural South Africa, and suddenly realise

the detail you required isn’t among your plethora of paper, the words ‘mobile technology’

couldn’t sound better

A financial services client

Offering life insurance products to less affluent customers

Their financial advisors are the sales force and they’re spread across SA, including very significant presence in outlying and rural areas ?

Case study

Qualitative benefit levers

Real-time access to customer information

Enhanced sales process

Reduced turn-around time

A better customer experience

On-going client relationship management

The benefits identified in providing a more effective mobile solution to the sales agents included:

Higher customer satisfaction

Faster application processing and responses

Faster responses to agent queries

Keeping clients engaged

Gaining organisational intelligence from lost

deals

1PILOT GROUP

SALES AGENTS7

QUESTIONS16• Present working

conditions.

• Experience with the mobile application.

• Opinions regarding technology.

• Improvements?

1. Meet needs?2. Want a mobile

technology, with more client information

2

Why?1. To guide design

decisions2. Identify with

users

4Personas created

The sales agents are ‘hungry’ for technology and providing them with a mobile solution will help them significantly in their work.

Competent with mobile phones

Multiple SIM cards

Whatsapp is a channel used by agents80%

willing to upgrade if it would help them

Competition has mobile apps

Unable to get up-to-date info easily

Require leads gathering and storing functionality

Take documents with them

when travelling

Identify with the brand

Transport is an issue

Client follow up required for client retention

3

45

PERSONAS

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS

TECHNICAL REVIEW

USER SURVEYS

We visited 10 locations in South Africa

42 user interviews with sales agents

at their local branches

Understanding user needs

Application Environment

Development Environment

Organisation & Skills

Methodology

Wireframes

User journeys

Prioritise framework

1PILOT GROUP

SALES AGENTS7

QUESTIONS16• Present working

conditions.

• Experience with the mobile application.

• Opinions regarding technology.

• Improvements?

1. Meet needs?2. Want a mobile

technology, with more client information

In the last 18 months, the client had attempted to instil a few ounces of hope into the life of their advisors through the delivery of a pilot mobile application, which could be used to access information while visiting clients. Unfortunately, the pilot group found that the application didn’t meet their needs, and thus reverted back to hoarding paper and burning their precious airtime with calls to head office. Clearly an opportunity to showcase the beauty and significance of effective UXD?

The pilot group had great insights to share in terms of their daily lives and needs, as well as their experience

in using the existing app

2

4 Personas created

PERSONAS

The Personas developed helped

the teams and business to guide

the design decisions for the

improved app

FUNCTION EXPERIENCE

USER PROFILE ENVIRONMENT

PERSONA

3

USER SURVEYS

We visited 10 locations in South Africa

42 user interviews with sales agents

at their local branches

Old:

Eliciting requirements

Now:

Get into the lives and

experiences of users

Present working conditions

How they go about their business

What is working well

What their pain points are

Opinions regarding technology

F R U S T R A T I O N S

The number one reason for

frustration as a sales agent came to be identified as lapses and

NTUs.

This was followed by the inability to get up to date information easily.

“It is hard to find information on the existing client policy, finding out who is covered is hard, right now you have to

phone the head office, and the office is busy” thus the sales consultant has to come to the office to phone the call centre

to get information.Leads gathering and storing information was found to be key in the work livelihoods of the sales reps.One of the participants had a tactic where he would obtain referrals by handing out a register during his presentations to gather contact details.

What frustrated

the users?

5

TECHNICAL REVIEW

Application Environment

Development EnvironmentOrganisation &

Skills

Methodology

The Current phase had taken 18 months to deliver the client query function.

As the client continues to grow, there will always be “other priorities” that seem more important but as projects are prioritised, is enough consideration being given to what changes will have the greatest impact in achieving business objectives?

For example, there is an increasing pressure on sales effectiveness as our client approaches market saturation.

Therefore, faster releases, including the most important functionality, are required.

How can you release better functionality, more quickly?

Faster releases are required

Technical review & recommendations: wireframes

As-is experience / journey map

To-be experience / journey map

Customer

IT BUSINESS

High level roadmap

How do we prioritise?

High=3; Med=2; Low=1; ✓ = Previous functionality identified; ★ = New functionality identified * Assumptions Made: Technical Feasibility and Business Value

Roadmap

# Item User Value Business ValueTechnical

FeasibilityPriority

Previously

Identified

1 Query client profile High High High 9 ✓

2Report highlighting clients who have not

paidHigh High High 9 ★

3 Submit or view claim status High High Med 8 ★

4 Self help (reset password, FAQs) Med High High 8 ✓

5 Leads management High High Low 7 ✓ Separate application.

6 Affordability Med High Med 7 ✓

7 Reminders (incl after-sales service) Med Med High 7 ★

8 Reservations Med High Low 6 ✓ Still in development

9 Risk rating Low High Med 6 ✓

10 Detailed product descriptions Low Med High 6 ★

11 Request callback from branch Med Med Med 6 ★ Turnaround time, business process.

12 Preload phone with airtime Med Low High 6 ★

13 My clients/stats/progress Low Med Med 5 ★

14New business (application &

submission)Med Med Low 5 ✓

Mitigating risk, legislation and

compliance.

High level roadmap

The project has identified a number of

additional functions based on the interviews. 7 of the items flagged below were

identified in Phase 1.

High Level Roadmap

Phase 1(18 months)

Phase 2 High Level Planning

Sprint PreparationSprints

(short term)

Sprints(medium

term)

Sprints(long term)

• Android Application Developed with Query Function

• Released to Pilot Group of 8 agents

• User Experience Design

• Technical Review

• High Level Roadmap

User Experience:• Wireframes• User Testing• Information

Architecture• Task Flow Analysis• User Scenarios

Technical:• Architectural Setup• Technical Team

Onboarding

Plan and Manage:• Define Agile

Approach• Set up Team• Break Down User

Stories in Backlog• Scrum Introduction• Affinity Estimation• Release Plan• Define Change

Management Approach

• Align Project to Programme of Work

Deliver high priority functions:

• Query Client Profile• Report highlighting

clients who have not paid

• Submit & View claim status

• Self help (reset password, FAQs)

Deliver medium / lower priority functions:

• Leads management

• Affordability• Reminders

(Incl After-sales service)

• Reservations• Risk rating

Deliver more complex or lower priority:

• Detailed product descriptions

• Request callback from branch

• My clients/Stats/Progress

• New Business (Application & Submission)

Security and access management project

2 Week Sprints that result in chunks of deliverable features

We proposed moving to an Agile approach, delivering capability incrementally to the users through clearly defined Sprints

Design and Develop

Pilot

High level roadmap

Our Scrum approach works within the build-measure-learn framework:• Agree sprint work• Planning• Sprint (development)• Sprint review

So, what did we learn and what’s next?

Mobile Financial Services

New approaches are required

These approaches need to cover the client’s needs, the business’s expectations and

technology’s ability to deliver sustainably

Get out of the building!Test what is actually going on by spending

time with your users and customers.

MOBILE = FUTURE

• They must be economically viable for the business

• They must be feasible and sustainable in terms of the technology used to enable the change

• MOST IMPORTANTLY: They must meet the needs of their users and customers, or they’ll never be used!

Customer

IT BUSINESS

CHANGE

What does this mean for how we now

create change?

Need to ensure that innovation and change meets three levels of

acceptance:

Jurie SchoemanStrategy and Client Engagement

+27 11 215 6666

Jurie.schoeman@bsg.co.za

@Jurie_S

Oxford Terrace

3 Ninth Street

Houghton Estate

2198

www.bsg.co.za // @bsgafrica

THANK YOU!