Permanent TSB
Switching banks
You might have heard of or even gone through this process yourself when back in 2021 two banks, Ulster Bank and KBC, left the Irish market leaving over 1 million people needing to find a new banking partner.
Like all other banks in ROI Permanent TSB expected a surge in account openings and knew they didn’t have the required staffing levels to support all customers in branch or on the phone and knew they had to use digital more effectively.
Overview
PTSB appointed us as their extending UX team working clostl with their internal product and digital teams from marketing, multiple product owners from areas like credit cards to overdrafts and external agencies too from pay per client advertising to developers.
My role in this project was UX designer working closely with their stakeholders to understand the entire user journey and create wireframes that work within their technical feasibilities was creating the best journey for users during a tough and stressful time
My role
*Since this project, PTSB have changed their branding
Nominated for Best in Financial Services
Our Process
We needed to get to market fast but we had to be realistic. Given this timeframe, we broke this project out into 2 sprints.
Sprint one was created to meet the close deadline of getting the ‘Online Hub’ up and running, Sprint 2 was created to test and iterate post MVP.
Sprint one
PTSB provided customer journey maps involved in moving a product from a single product to multiple products. To enhance our understanding of each journey map, we conducted five workshops with multiple stakeholders looking at each map in-depth.
Customer journey mapping
An information architecture was created that focused on pages that were relevant to the switching journeys, that were developed in the workshops with PTSB.
The focus of this IA was to ensure a fast, smooth customer journey from whichever point the user enters the site and moves through their primary journey to the ‘Switching bank online hub’ content and CTA’s
Information Architecture
Wireframes were created based on our analysis of the customer journey maps and MVP IA. These wireframes went through multiple rounds of discussions and iterations with stakeholders based on technical feasibility and ensuring each user journey was equally catered for.
Wireframes
Once the ‘Online Hub’ went live we were able to track analytics of the ‘Online Hub’ using Google Analytics and reviewed users’ behaviours with a user behaviour tool Crazy Egg. Using this tool we were able to track and optimise users behaviour.
Usability tests and analytics review
As well as this, we conducted virtual usability tests. First, we created a screener survey to narrow down a specific user type. We needed to find users who predominantly bank online, and have yet to move banks or are in the process of moving banks.
These tests were conducted to:
Determine if users are able to complete main switch journeys without issues
Ensure the content gives the user confidence in the PTSB brand and set of products
Does the content support customers to easily move/switch to PTSB
Are customers able to easily move through the various steps of the switch journey?
Are customers experiencing any issues on different devices?
Are customers experiencing difficulty in switching channels to complete their journey?
Test were done on both desktop and mobile with some users being asked to start the test on their preferred device
After analysing and pulling our key insights from this research, we presented out fining back to PTSB key stakeholders. This playback included videos and quotes from usability test to back our recommendations. These recommendations focused on these key themes:
SEO
Navigation
Content
Design
Attitudes
Tactical improvements
System Usability Score (SUS)
Sprint two
Based on Sprint One recommendations, we worked closely with stakeholders to ensure each recommendation was discussed and implemented, if feasible. This involved close coordination with their development and internal UX teams, with both remote work and in-person collaboration at the PTSB offices.
Wireframes and UI
One thing Sprint one usability tests revealed was that customers were feeling frustrated, angry and anxious in the wake of switching and didn’t know where to start.
Usability tests
Because of this insight, we wanted to focus more on the whole journey of moving bank, not just tasks on the website.
For this round of testing, we asked the user to start from either Google or the PTSB app to ensure we are focusing on the whole user journey.
These tests were conducted in person in Dublin and remotely via Zoom.
Results
of new accounts opened in app, unassisted
70%
increase in returning visitors to switching content signalling it usefulness
20%
page views in the first month
81,000
assisted conversions signalling high intent to open an account
19,800
increase in current account openings from the previous year