Cloud Apply - U.S. Bank

Cloud Apply was an enterprise-level effort involving the identification of a root problem, conceptualization of an enterprise solution, and implementation of an omni-channel and product agnostic sales and onboarding platform.

Intro

  • $45,000,000 internal savings in the first year of implementation.

  • 5-25% increase in conversation rates across all consumer product applications.

  • Intuitive, seamless, and minimal friction experience for our customers across all application experiences.

  • Able to easily extend platform to third-party/external partners.

Key impacts & results

The problem statement driving our effort was a big one: “We don’t make it easy for customers to give us their business.”.

Problem statement

  • 3-6-9

  • Design Thinking Process driven

Process

  • Me - UX Platform Leader & Design Thinking Leader

  • Partner - EVP of Product

  • Partner - EVP of Development/Technology

Team

Empathy

“We don’t make it easy for customers to give us their business.”

  • Problem Impact: The problem significantly impacted both customers and the internal organization.

  • Problem Understanding: Design thinking exercises were used to understand the problems faced by customers.

  • Internal Impact: The problem affected various internal teams, including branch and phone bankers, and product delivery teams.

Design thinking exercise: Think, Feel, Say, Do

  • Internal Assessment Focus: Internal teams, platforms, and tools.

  • Stakeholder Interviews: Over 50 interviews with more than 115 stakeholders.

  • Platform Redundancy: 15 different platforms or versions serving the same purpose.

Major discovery

“Apply Spiderweb” - A visual showing how the various channels and business lines were leveraging different and multiple platforms.

  • Internal Impact: Multiple product delivery teams were working on different platforms without reusability, scalability, or consistency.

  • External Impact: Customers were receiving outdated, unintuitive, and disjointed banking experiences due to the 15 different platforms.

Summary

Define

  • Project Phase Transition: Transitioned from empathy phase to define phase.

  • User-Centric Approach: Utilized “Core Problem Discovery” exercise for a user-centric approach.

  • Problem Statement Reframing: Changed from “We don’t make it easy for customers to give us their business.” to “How can we help our customers easily get products they need and love?”

Redefining our problem statement

Personal exercise: Core Problem Discovery

  • User-Centric Approach: Emphasized the importance of understanding customer, internal banker, and product team needs.

  • Problem Redefinition: Redefining the problem statement was crucial for success.

Summary

Ideate

Generating great ideas that lead to an optimal solution

  • Project Ideation: The team quickly agreed on a solution of creating a white-label platform after brainstorming and considering other design ideas.

  • Platform Benefits: A channel and product-agnostic platform would allow for consistency across branch, phone, and digital banking experiences.

  • Platform Goal: The platform would replace almost all existing platforms, providing a unified solution for bankers and customers.

Ideation of taking four different product applications all asking for the same information in different ways and showing how the new platform could provide one solution that worked for all.

  • Project Goal: Develop a channel and product-agnostic sales and onboarding platform.

Summary

Prototype

Sure, we can design for it…but can we build it?

  • Prototyping Goal: To determine the technical feasibility of the design solution.

  • Technical Feasibility Evaluation: “Above the glass” and “Below the glass” approaches were used to visualize and communicate the solution’s feasibility.

  • Stakeholder Engagement: Simple visuals and storytelling helped secure buy-in from C-Suite decision makers and key stakeholders.

Above the glass visual showing the reusability and scalability of the proposed solution

Below the glass visual showing the reusability and scalability of the proposed solution

  • Prototyping Goal: To ensure the system is usable by all channels and business lines.

  • Prototyping Challenge: Verifying the system’s build feasibility for all channels and business lines.

  • Prototyping Outcome: Successfully achieved the goal of building platform usable by all channels and products.

Summary

Test

  • Testing Objective: To ensure the platform provides intuitive, usable, and delightful experiences for customers.

  • Testing Scope: Testing focused on onboarding different channels and business lines onto the platform.

  • Testing Timing: Conducted after successfully onboarding different channels and business lines onto the platform.

Testing…and testing…and testing

High-level overview showing various channels and businesses leveraging reusable design and development toolkits as well as decisioning tools.

  • Platform Impact: Achieved channel and product-agnostic platform implementation, delivering updated and consistent customer experiences.

  • Business Outcome: Increased conversion rates across products, exceeding industry benchmarks.

  • Internal Impact: $45MM cost savings/tech debt reduction in the first year.

The result