DIGITAL INTERACTIVE SERVICES

Creating lasting experiences for fintech users

“Design is the intermediary between information and understanding." -- Hans Hoffman

Investing in stock markets is the new wealth creator today, with a plethora of app-based platforms wresting the power from a select few trading experts and resting it in the hands of non-experts like you and me. But have you ever determined to register for one of these platforms, and given up mid-way because of unending procedures, documentation, and verifications? I certainly have.

Then the question begs, what a good financial product is? One that offers unbreakable security, the one with several utilitarian features, or the one that makes it easy for us to navigate through these features. The answer is – all rolled into one concept, i.e., user experience (UX). In an evolving market like today’s that is increasingly becoming virtual and where users are consuming products across channels, great User experience (UX) becomes critical for a company’s success.

Improving customer engagement with good UX

Having established the importance of good UX in today’s world, we must also acknowledge that building it is a dynamic and intuitive process. Building user experience is a combination of accumulated customer thoughts, understanding of user journeys, and empathetic action on the part of the UX and UI designers. Every category of user will have different types of requirements and preferences. Therefore, a concerted effort to know your user must be undertaken to build adaptive and lean applications that are compatible across platforms.

In an evolving market like today’s that is increasingly becoming virtual and where users are consuming products across channels, great user experiences (UX) become critical for a company’s success.

• A user-friendly app or website is the first interaction a visitor or potential customer will have with your business. So, a good user experience in this first stage is a testing proposition. Good UX/UI design at this stage will instantly set the tone in your favour and convince potential users to sign up for your service. Particularly in the case of financial services, an intuitive user experience will help build trust and ensure that the information-sharing process is easy and secure. A poorly designed product will disaffect customers who need your services but don't trust your presentation enough to sign up.
• Signing up and onboarding is the stage where prospective users are potentially converted into active users. Your customers want a solution to their problems, and they want it now. A good app or website design prioritizes site navigation, so clients can get their work done with less effort and fewer clicks or taps. Whether it's paying bills, checking account balances, or transferring money, every second counts for an ideal customer experience, and more so in the case of investment-related products and services.
• Easy-to-understand financial terms and quick access to consumable information are one of the top priorities when building UX. Nowadays people want to be financially literate, to manage their finances, banking, and investment, if not for anything else. A good Intuitive design reduces complexity and information overload, bringing simplicity, transparency and therefore ease of use.
• Effortless authorization like biometrics, touch identification, face identification or voice identification can be used to reduce the effort of repeated logins, while also ensuring security. If login and authorization take a long time, users will try and avoid it or may even abandon the process. With the interlinked ecosystem of financial products today, building an easy, but secure authorization process is possible.
• Cut off Complexity and avoid overburdening the UX design with too many features (often referred to as feature creep). If your digital service requires user action, it's better to break it up into step-by-step tasks rather than club everything on one screen. A progress bar indicating the number of steps completed can also be used to make a cumbersome process easy. All interface elements can be localized according to user preferences. So, you can set the priority on each screen.
• Improve customer engagement with data visualization, gamification, contests, Q&A sessions, or creating awareness about financial topics. While data visualization can be used to present the financial activity of a user in the form of charts or histograms, gamification and contests can be used to push related products to the users without hard selling. These in combination will boost a company’s data play and help build customer personas by preferences, behaviour, and patterns.
• Sourcing feedback from customers is important not just for companies to understand loopholes and improve, but also to give an easy avenue for customers to communicate with your business. Many times, customers want to leave feedback but are put off by the lack of it. An effective feedback loop will help you improve service quality and increase customer satisfaction in turn.

Data is the backbone of implementing the above strategies in building a good UX. And vice versa, more consumers on the platform means more data. When a platform algorithm is fed with increasing sets of data, insights gradually become more sophisticated and granular. A good UX design will help companies leverage this power of data by drawing in more consumers. Embracing the dynamic nature of these learnings, and subsequently improving and evolving, can make or break a company’s success. Which side do you fall on?