Make waiting worth while
Nobody likes to wait, especially in today’s world. Luckily we don’t have to wait so much anymore. Movies are available on demand, online shops can deliver on the same day and customer service is always available to answer your questions. So what about your finances? Is every banking service delivered to you in real time? I am afraid that is not he case. For some financial services you still have to wait. In this article I will dive into a waiting case and try to discover how we can ease the pain of waiting.
Right now is important
One of the biggest pain points for customers is the waiting time. In the financial industry, companies try to improve their process with ‘STP’ (straight-through processing), also known as ‘fast track’ or ‘one touch’. This basically means automated an automated process, without a human touch. And that usually results in a fast result, or even a direct result for the customer that did the request.
Banks that are able to ask KYC (identity verification) questions as a natural part of the digital journey, including follow-ups and reminders, tend to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. — McKinsey
McKinsey research shows, that by automating and speeding up a process the customer experience usually improves. That’s a double win! No time needed from an employee and happier customers. However, this win comes with a new problem. In the example of insurance companies, they expect fraud cases to double when STP is applied.
Based on our research and experience, we expect instances of fraud to at least double depending on the safeguards insurers have put in place as they turn to bots to handle their claims. — Arnaud Grapinet (Chief Data Scientist at Shift Technology
Besides security there are more reasons why customer sometimes have to wait for their request. Another big reason are the old legacy systems that can not be changed quick and easily.
When right now is not an option
Uber deals with waiting time as well. It is their number one customer pain. No wonder they spend a lot of research and effort in making the waiting process as transparent and comfortable as possible .
What Uber found out and what they do to make waiting less painful are these three things:
- (1) Idleness aversion. The first principle is entertaining customers while they are waiting, Uber does that with nice visuals.
- The second principle is * (2) Operational transparency. This principle tells us that we should keep the customer informed during the process and show the customer where this information comes from. In Uber’s case they show the calculation of the arrival time when you ordered a taxi. Also an optional screen is available where Uber explains how they calculate their estimation.
- The last principle is (3) The goal gradient effect. This effect shows that the closer customers come to winning, the more encouraged they become. Uber shows very clear steps in the progress of the customer and shows you what the next step is in your journey. In that way the customer is encouraged to go to the next step.
Ordering new sneakers
Can we find principles from Uber’s case back in ordering new Nike sneakers? Yes we can! Nike entertains you with beautiful tasty images of the sneakers you just ordered. They know how to present their products really well. This is (1) Idleness aversion. Nike is keeping you informed about the process. You get all the information you need. That includes an estimation of the delivery date and the company that handles the shipment. Providing you with this information is (2) Operational transparency. When waiting for your shoes, the company that handles the shipment will most likely cut the time you have to wait until you can wear your new sneakers in smaller pieces. For example you will receive one message that tells you that your sneakers will arrive tomorrow. The next day you will receive a message that tells you that your sneakers will arrive between 12 am and 17 pm. And in the afternoon you get a message that your sneakers will arrive in half an hour. Creating these little steps is (3) The goal gradient effect.
A case from ING bank
Sneakers are fun, but is banking fun? How can we make waiting for your request from your bank as smooth as possible? Let’s start with a case. The case of doing an extra repayment on your mortgage. Most mortgages ask for a monthly repayment. For all kinds of reasons customers sometimes want to pay more than their monthly payment. Banks offer the possibility to make an extra repayment. By itself an easy action, but when it comes to the numbers it gets a bit more complicated. The interest of your mortgage depends on your debt, so your extra repayment changes the interest you pay in the future. Also in most cases the amount you can repay extra per year without paying a penalty is limited. It get’s even more complicated when you do an extra repayment at the end of a month or a year. Because of all these complications, it is not yet possible to do an extra repayment and see the effect in real time. You have to wait (sometimes a few days) for your request to be executed.
Waiting for your bank
While working on the best possible scenario (instant extra repayment) we as ING have to figure out how to make the waiting experience as smooth as possible. Currently there is room for improvement:
The lack of information about the execution of the extra mortgage repayment is one of the top feedback items regarding this process — ING
This makes sense. Because although all the information about the delay in the effect of your extra repayment is described in the process it-selves, it disappears once you did the extra repayment. Let’s say you have a €100.000 mortgage. If you pay off an extra €10.000 the first few days you will still see an unchanged mortgage debt of €100.000 euro in your banking app.
How can we use the principles described by Uber to help us? The first one, Idleness aversion can be used. For example by telling customers the positive effect of their repayment, or to tell customers how much is remaining until they have a mortgage free home. The second one, Operational transparency is probably the most applicable. It can be used by providing the customer information about the process and the progress within the process. The third one, The goal gradient effect, could be useful as well. In this case multiple steps could be defined within the process. In that way you can inform customers in what step they currently are.
Improve the waiting for your bank
When trying to apply the operational transparency principle in the waiting journey it is important to take a look at the journey as it is right now. To put it in a simple way, this is an example of the current journey.
- Customer decides to do an extra repayment
- Customer makes the extra repayment, does not actively read and/or remember the information about the time that it takes to process the extra repayment
- Customer checks after (for example) one day if the extra repayment is already processed
- Customer checks app or internet-banking environment and sees the mortgage debt is still the same, despite the money for the extra repayment is already paid
- Customer is frustrated and decides to call customer service
Since there is only one spot to check if your payment is processed, it makes sense to make use of that spot to put the information the customers are looking for.
So the plan is, to put the information as personalised as possible at the spot that you have to check in a notable way. To give an idea what that will look like, below you find the before and after sketches, for desktop and mobile. This is an example of using the Operational transparency principle.
The next steps
The proposed solution is a nice first step but we are not done yet. First the assumption must be validated that customers will notice the message and are satisfied with the content. When all of that is true, the operational transparency principle is successfully applied and is correctly used to improve the customer experience.
The future
If the above solution improves the customer experience, probably in the short term the process will not be improved further. This is because the team that has to create this has a backlog with more urgent matters. However it is useful to think about the next steps and how the three principles from Uber can help with that.
First there is the most obvious solution to he waiting problem, that would be an instant processed repayment. It will look something like this below. Because there is no waiting, the three principles can not be used.
When customers do have to wait it becomes more complicated to sketch a satisfying experience. I will try to sketch a better experience using the three principles. First there is the Idleness aversion, basically ‘amuse’ to ease the pain of waiting. In this example we can do that by providing the following message:
“You are only 9 of these repayments away from a mortgage free home”
To have a mortgage free home is a goal for many people so this message probably will give most customers a happy feeling. What is noteworthy is that the principle learns us to give this message before the payment is process instead of after you did it. Because only by putting it before the waiting it can help ease the waiting.
The second principle of Operational transparency was already in place by the simple solution, and will be the same in this proposal. It is about providing the customer with all the information that is available about the steps ING has to take to process the repayment. In the new proposal I also suggest to keep the customer up-to-date by using push messages.
The third principle is the The goal gradient effect. In this example we can apply it by creating a little timeline that describes the waiting process. First step is doing the repayment. The second step could be a push message that tells the customer exactly when the repayment is processed. The third step is when the repayment actually is processed and another push message will appear. The theory is that cutting the waiting time in smaller steps will make it more bearable.
When the above described proposals will be executed it could look like something like this:
Conclusion
As designers we don’t always take our time to really figure out he best solution. This can be because the solution is quite obvious or because there are a lot of technical limitations that are limiting us. In the example described in this article it was a combination of both. For other future projects, or for the future of a project that for now is limited, it is still useful to look beyond technical limitations and study some theory about the subject.
