LIVEPERSON

A study of the retail banking customer experience and its readiness for conversational commerce. 

In 2018 I was hired by Liveperson to conduct a study on the digital customer service (CX) of North America banks to identify opportunities for conversational commerce. The findings of this study were presented as a 27 page report which would serve as the foundation of future conversation design workshops. 

 
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March 2018

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Completed at Liveperson

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Research report

 

During the three week study I was responsible for the following deliverables:   

  • Literature study

  • Heuristic evaluation

  • Task flow analysis

  • Findings report

MY ROLE

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CHALLENGE

Measure the retail banking industry's readiness for conversational commerce and identify opportunities to improve current user experience beyond the limitations that the existing websites and apps present.

 

Working with the LivePerson conversational design team, my analysis focussed around the top 10 customer service requests (intents) received by retail banking CX teams (based on internal data). The study included an audit of 10 of North America's largest banking websites. Exercises undertaken included a heuristic evaluation and task flow analysis.

Having previously developed bots for both Under Armour and Patagonia I was aware of how important user testing would be in validating any final creative concepts. While not part of this project’s deliverables I outlined a test plan for their conversation design team.
 

APPROACH

 
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Unsurprisingly, the study found that while human connection remained a huge part of a bank's core CX strategy, digital platforms have and would continue to raise customer’s expectations around speed and convenience. 

Additionally, the limited dimensionality of desktop and mobile interfaces is forcing banks to prioritize small sets of features resulting in customers spending more time searching for the services they actually need. I used the insights gathered during my study to shape the following recommendations: 

  • Personalization - Conversational interfaces will greatly simplify the path of discovery by allowing different customers to navigate to a single goal via multiple enquiry avenues (depending on their need state). It was recommended the 3 primary wayfinding personas locate, explore, meander be used to shape the design of future conversation trees.

  • Credibility - Build trust with customers by providing greater transparency of the services a brand offers. Conversational commerce will allow banking customers to control what information they want to see and when.

  • Task escalation - Provide easy channels to specialized bots or expert human CX operative so tasks may be answered quickly and accurately. With consumer level IA still in its infancy it is essential that users

Please note that due to the terms of my non disclosure agreement further details of this report are not able to be published publicly. Questions you may have can be discussed in person.   

Findings
(Highlights only)

 

Like any researcher, farewelling a project before concepts have been executed is a little frustrating. Spending weeks identifying creative opportunities is a lot of fun and not having to worry about bug testing and development timelines is a weight off your shoulders, however, it is incredibly enjoyable seeing real user responses to the products you have created.

Reflections