Rachel Laskowski
Rachel Laskowski

Banking Services

A User Experience Research Task

What challenge DID I SET OUT to solve?

In 2016, a large portion of the bank’s customer service calls and complaints were in regards to account overdrafts and related fees. The bank wanted to reduce call volume and complaints to save money, improve customer satisfaction, and increase customer retention.

Through surveys, it was determined that customers might not understand how Overdraft Options, Overdraft Protection, and 24-Hour Grace services work. A business case to educate and empower customers about these services was submitted, approved, and executed upon. Marketing materials and website modifications were released in March 2017. Apart form satisfying financial regulators, the bank was not aware if these efforts achieved any of the educational goals. I decided to find out.

To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obscured confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Huntington National Bank.

Actions

What was my plan to address this?

Start of the Project
I began with an internal memo proposing how this 7-week research project would contribute to shaping the overdraft services communications to be as effective as possible for existing and new customers. The memo briefly stated the goals, the focused research questions, justification, and feasibility for this study.

Business Goals

  • Increase customer understanding of their overdraft options, their elections, and any overdraft-inducing transactions, from 70% to 80%.
  • Reduce calls to the phone bank whereby the customer is either calling to establish or to manage Overdraft Protection on an account.
  • Reduce customer complaints about fees in order to improve customer satisfaction; increase customer retention; and deepen customers’ product relationships with the bank.

Research Questions
The user research study addressed the following questions:

  1. To what degree have the marketing and self-service pages released in March 2017 helped customers utilize Overdraft Protection and/or 24-Hour Grace services?    
  2. What preconceptions do people have about Overdraft Protection and /or 24-hour Grace? And why?
  3. What is it about the concepts and/or the language being used that make it difficult for customers to understand the Overdraft Protection and/or 24-Hour Grace services.
 

executive summary

This 5-minute video is an executive summary of the project that includes:

  • the reason for this study

  • background leading to the study

  • research methods used

  • findings from the research

  • ending with actionable recommendations

 

Research Methods

User experience research was used to discover if the modifications to 3 web pages released in March 2017 helped the target audience clearly understand Overdraft Options, Overdraft Protection, and 24-Hour Grace services.

The 3 web pages on which the study was focused. 

I used the qualitative method of interviewing to understand how effective the educational messaging was for target users. I also reviewed analytics of the Manage Your Overdraft Options page, as well as, the public facing pages for Overdraft Fees Explained, and 24-Hour Grace Overdraft Fee Relief. This quantitative method helped me understand how the 3 web pages have performed among all our users since March 2017.

Recruitment

Next, I gave some thought to the target audience we needed to interview. Determining what characteristics were essential to have, and which traits were to be avoided.

 

Essential Characteristics:

  • 18 years of age or older (preferred a range of ages between 18-45)
  • Own a checking account with a financial institution, for a minimum of two years.
  • Use online banking 75% or more of the time to manage their bank accounts.
  • Is the primary family member (or shared co-responsibility with one other person) to oversee and manage personal household finances.
  • First language needed to be English (mid-west regional footprint).
  • A plus if participants have experienced overdrawing an account and incurring a fee, at least once.

Traits to Avoid:

  • Participants who currently or have in the past worked in the financial industry, or have majored in finance.
  • Participants who currently or have in the past, worked as professional writers, editors, or have majored in English.
 

Recruitment screener used to find appropriate participants for this study.

 

I also developed Outreach and Session Management Plans for the qualitative interviews. The plan was to use existing contacts. I felt this would work for the following reasons:

  1. Most people own and use a checking account, along with other account types.
  2. In general, people are accustomed to completing banking tasks online.
  3. A great number of people have been exposed to the overdraft and protection concepts being explored.
  4. A good many of us have experienced overdrawing an account and incurring a late fee at one point or another.

Creating the Recruitment Screener, as well as, the Outreach and Session Management Plans helped me think through logistics and how I was going to manage my time in order to get informative and actionable insights about the bank’s messaging.

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Research Method

Analytics

Thinking through the pieces of the workflow ahead of time, provided a focused guideline for drawing-out the results I needed. I planned what information was to be captured, how it was to be analyzed, and how findings would be conveyed.

I reviewed analytics from the three web pages used in the study. I was looking for answers to the following questions:

  • How many users have utilized the management functionality since the March release, as opposed to how many prior?
  • How many users have opted-in to overdraft protection, have numbers increased since March?
  • How do the number of visits compare for each page, before March and after?
  • Where do users go next from each of the three web pages? Are they hopping between the three pages?
  • Are customers consuming the content on the pages, or scanning and leaving?

These questions roll-up into the first of three research questions:

1) To what degree have the marketing and self-service pages released in March 2017 helped customers utilize Overdraft Protection and/or 24-Hour Grace services?

Analytic Findings

24-Hour Grace Overdraft Fee Relief Page

Page visits have stayed about the same at an average of 250 visits per day.

Users are reading this page because the time spent on average is 2 minutes. In addition, we are able to tell that most people coming to this page are primarily interested in this specific information, based on the exit path. 17% go onto review Overdraft Fees Explained page.

Overdraft Fees Explained Page

Page visits have increased 37% since March, averaging 275 visits per day.

Users are reading this page because the time spent on average is 4-5 minutes. In addition, we are able to tell that most people coming to this page are primarily interested in this specific information, based on the exit path. 10% go onto review 24-Hour Grace Overdraft Fee Relief page.

Manage Your Overdraft Options Page

Page visits have increased 90% since March, averaging 1,200 visits per day.

Users are reading and using this page because the time spent on average is 2-3 minutes, and 37,000 users have changed their Overdraft elections and Overdraft Protection options since March.

“(the bank) elects not to overdraw your account, your transactions could be declined, but you will not incur an overdraft fee, however you will get that return fee that they don’t say here, but they spelled out above, right? Because didn’t we say right up here there would be a return fee?”
— Participant 5
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Research Method

Interviews

In terms of the interviews, I worked with stakeholders to determine the following areas of focus:

  1. Preconceptions & Terminology - I asked each participant to describe the services in their own words. We thought it might be important to capture the terminology the target audience uses to describe the services, so that the bank might use similar terminology in their customer-facing communications.
     
  2. Read & Think-Aloud - I presented the three web pages (changing up the order) and asked each participant to read the content aloud, expressing their thoughts and feelings about what the content meant to them. This uncovered words and phrases that made sense, as well as, messaging that was confusing or irritating, and the reasons why.
     
  3. Overdraft Options Management - Lastly, I asked each participant to find the page that allows them to manage their overdraft options from the newly designed homepage, and decide on whether or not to change their elections. This was to test the information architecture of the global navigation and the usability of the opt-in/opt-out overdraft elections.

Thinking about the data variables beforehand helped me write an effective and focused Interview guide. The script ensured I wouldn’t skip any important questions during the interviews.

The interview guide provided the structured script to help keep the interviews focused.

Interview Findings

Six participant interviews were conducted and recorded. This qualitative method helped uncover answers to the remaining research questions:

2) What preconceptions do people have about Overdraft Protection and /or 24-Hour Grace? And why?

3) What is it about the concepts and/or the language being used that make it difficult for customers to understand the Overdraft Protection and/or 24-Hour Grace services?

 

Preconceptions

What does it mean to overdraft an account? All the participants understood it’s when you spend more money than you have. What was interesting is that most participants described it in terms of an example, for instance, “You write a check for $100 and you only have $50 in your account.”

What is 24-Hour Grace? Most participants understood 24-Hour Grace to be a feature in which customers who have overdrawn their account 24 hours to get the necessary funds back into the account before they are charged a fee. However, half the participants also described that the bank would alert the customer about the overdraft when it happened - giving the customer plenty of time to fix the account balance. The concern is that people expect that the alert is apart of the 24-Hour Grace service, which it currently is not. They don't perceive this to be an alert they are responsible to setup themselves.

 

Spectrum showing divergence in preconceptions of 24-Hour Grace.

What is Overdraft Protection? A third of the participants understood the overdraft protection service to involve another linked account that would be used to pull money from in the event the initial account was overdrawn. This way, the customer uses their own money to cover an overdraft and the bank moves the money for them as a free service.

Others described it as an “insurance policy” or a safety net that covers the customer until they fix the balance of the account. These participants expected to be charged a regular fee for this coverage.

And other participants described it as a notification service that lets the customer know their account is negative and they have x-amount of time to fix it before fees are charged.

Spectrum showing divergence in preconceptions of Overdraft Protection.

 

Functionality & Find-ability

Functionality. All participants understood the purpose of the Manage Overdraft Options page was to allow customers of the bank to check and change their overdraft elections. Their choices are to either authorize the bank to permit overdrafts on their accounts, or to withhold that authorization.

Find-ability. We also tested to see if users were able to find the Manage Overdraft Options page from the authenticated dashboard page. This proved more difficult for most participants. The following table helps illustrate where in the navigation participants went first, second, and third. The most direct path is to go to Profile, and down the submenu to Manage Overdraft Options.

Table recording the first three navigation choices.

All participants found the submenu link under Profile, eventually. Only one participant used the most direct path and had no trouble. The second most popular choices were, Service Center or Dashboard.

 
“…Is that negative 5 dollars? So you can still be in the hole, as long as your only 5 bucks in the hole? ...Oh this is getting complicated. So I’ve got this overdraft, but then I can get out of overdraft jail if I get the money within 5 dollars of 0.”
— Participant 5
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Results

What were the results of my work?

User research uncovered a handful of opportunities to reduce cognitive load for the user, as well as, removing mistrust of the bank. The pages are being utilized often enough to warrant the investment.

The actionable insights extracted from the research have helped inform the business stakeholders of the high, medium, and low recommended steps to take next. The following focuses on the high priority recommendations only.

1. Alerts in relationship to 24-Hour Grace

“Now how do they contact you for that? Do they call? Do they just send an email? Is that something you get setup? That would be interesting because you might not know that you went over, if you’re not on it, or checking it 24-7.”
— Participant 4

Clearly indicate to customers that they are responsible to setup and customize their own alerts in regards to their accounts. There's no automatic notification. Or change the service to include appropriate alerts for the customer as part of the 24-Hour Grace service.

2. Account Balance Following an Overdraft

“Oh we need to bring it to negative 4.99. Okay. So, the top was saying get it to positive. To zero basically. But this is saying get to $5 or less, but they’ll cover it if you can’t make it all the way... This makes me very weary. It just makes it feel like there will be more fees or something at some point if you just live in the negative world.”
— Participant 1

The bank needs to decide on one balance amount to tell customers their overdrawn accounts need to meet in order to be considered corrected. Communicating different amounts makes people suspicious that the bank is trying to trick them into more fees. Keep in mind that participants’ mental model was to return an account to a positive amount. But if regulations require -$4.99, then consistently communicate the same amount throughout.

3. Return Fees as they relate to Overdrafts

“But does that incur the Return Fee? It doesn’t say… So if they decide to return an item, that’s the return fee. But here it says if they elect not to do an item it can still be declined it will not incur an overdraft fee, but you could still incur a return fee? But they’re not telling you that?”
— Participant 1

People do not understand Return Fees. They don’t understand what they are or why they occur. We suggest adding the following text to body copy and FAQ answers that explain Return Fees: 

“A return is also a transaction for more money than is in your account. Here, however, instead of paying it from your account, we send it back through the network that sent it to us (it never gets to your account). For example, we 'bounce' a $50 check when your account balance is only $20.”

Customers will better understand what action the bank is taking and why a fee is charged.

 

executive summary

This 5-minute video is an executive summary of the project that includes:

  • the reason for this study
  • background leading to the study
  • research methods used
  • findings from the research
  • ending with actionable recommendations
 

Lessons Learned

What if anything did this project teach me about research, design, or myself?

I learned from conducting interviews previously, to space them out - not to schedule one on top of another. Towards the end of my prior experience, I was running out of energy and enthusiasm. I was able to avoid that this time because I scheduled them over a couple days, with ample time in between.

This project taught me to be careful as to the amount of research to commit to up-front. In my proposal memo, along with researching analytic reports and conducting interviews, I also thought I would be able to include secondary research from Customer Complaint Logs and Customer Surveys. Although I think it’s still a good idea to incorporate and synthesize those results with the primary research, I realized more time and coordination with other departments would be necessary.