Scotia Support
Meet the team who brought our financial relief hub online
In times of crisis, it’s important to come together to support one another. Scotiabank has always been committed to keeping our customers informed, so at the onset of a global pandemic, that commitment only grew deeper and broader. When the Canadian government announced financial relief measures available for anyone experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19, we began the process of building Scotia Support: a one-stop shop for the latest updates, answers to frequently asked questions, and online applications for financial relief measures.
Today, we’re introducing three of the leads behind Scotia Support:
Raf Delgado Aparicio, Head of Digital Marketing & Sales, Canada
Erin McGrath, Director, Digital Marketing Journey Management
Tiago Boaventura, Digital Design Lead
We sat down with Raf, Erin, and Tiago behind their respective screens to talk about how this hub became what it is today.
The Support Hub started as a page of FAQs. When did you realize you had to re-think your information architecture to accommodate more content?
Erin: The FAQ page was created on Friday, March 13 to answer an overwhelming number of questions around travel, points redemption, and insurance coverage, as March Break trips were cancelled, or cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the weekend (2 days later!), it was apparent that we would need a much more robust content structure to house the growing information available to support customers; giving them the answers to their most frequently asked questions, providing clear instruction on how to apply for new financial relief measures as the information started to become available, and letting them know what we were doing to keep them safe.
What were some of the challenges you faced in getting this out so quickly?
Raf: The toughest part was not having a brief and basically not knowing what would happen next. In a state of emergency, it’s a natural human reaction to think this will all be over in a few weeks. We had to quickly get over this to be able to imagine the best and the worst for us (being empathetic with our customers) so that we could foresee what our customers would need from their financial institution. And until that was clearly visible in the architecture, we weren’t ready to execute on any page.
Erin: When relief measures were announced, people started looking to Scotiabank for answers, so digital channels had to be ready to ‘go.’ It was a little like laying the tracks while driving the train. In the background, we had to create extensive FAQs around the relief measures, showcase how to apply for relief measures online, build the application, track user journeys, and determine how/when to communicate with customers after they applied for relief to let them know if they had been approved. Teams built, from the ground up, all of the content, application flows, analytics, and emails across all browsers and devices to push live as soon as possible to respond to customer demand; and delivered it all-in record-breaking time.
There must be a lot of moving pieces. How many people are working on this?
Raf: The core team focused on building the site was comprised of several crafts: an IA designer and an SEO expert to define the architecture and taxonomy; UX designers and content strategists to define the content hierarchy; data scientists and data engineers to turn interactions into signals; a product owner to facilitate the team’s vision and a group of engineers, content managers, copywriters, visual designers, and marketers to bring that vision to life. On top of those teams — the first I’m buying rounds for — were the ones building the actual applications on the site for customers seeking financial relief. It really took a village.
When communicating information during a crisis, how do you balance speed with your guiding principles of accessibility and great user experience design?
Tiago: The accessibility team at the Digital Factory does such a fabulous job of evangelizing a culture of inclusivity across multiple areas of technology practice, including UX and UI design. With a culture of accessibility at the very core of design flows, we try to ensure that every solution we push live is optimized to communicate effectively to all sorts of audiences. As we operate in an agile environment, we constantly track behavioural data on our sites. This helps us to quickly identify and reduce gaps, with the end goal of providing a great digital experience to everyone.
Raf: To echo Tiago, accessibility was top of mind for us: not just because we needed to provide an experience that all users can access, but because accessibility on the internet equals indexability; making sure that the technology our customers use can deliver the experience they need. An accessible site is one that doesn’t limit the interaction of the user, and we took this principle to heart by avoiding any “bells and whistles,” keeping our designs intuitive and simple. At this point in time, our role in service of our customers was to inform and support — nothing more, nothing less.
What is the role of organic search during a crisis and how important is it?
Raf: When searching for information, the majority of our customer’s journeys don’t begin at our site, they begin on a search engine. And the objective there is not just to have the top result, but the right one. The relevant result is the one that really answers their question; the result that takes them to a place where they can turn down the anxiety and turn up the reassurance. We have to anticipate their queries and use the right keywords so they can get to the content that will make them feel understood, just like any positive in-store experience.
Erin: One of the ways we leverage organic search is to review what people are looking for — this helps us develop content that is relevant to our users. For example, if we notice a spike in ‘how do I enrol in Direct Deposit,’ we make sure we have content that answers this question and shows users how and where to enrol.
How do you keep your mobile users in mind when designing for long-form content?
Tiago: People scroll, and “the fold” is a not thing anymore, right? Yes, true, but not always. We know that content consumption is all about engagement — if a user is interested, they’ll keep reading. However, Scotia Support is a site that features a variety of content that is long by nature: how-to’s, legal, and terms and conditions can’t just be shortened, and scrolling through them on mobile would just feel like an eternity. To provide a better experience for those cases, we’re developing and enhancing a variety of UI components such as expandable texts, swappable elements, and page anchors. These help to keep our customers informed, and equip them to take the action they need quickly.
What have been some of the biggest takeaways that you’ve heard from customers?
Erin: We built Scotia Support to be an information hub for customers, to alleviate call centre volume, and provide succinct, clear, and helpful information to a diverse customer base, with varying degrees of comfort and experience in banking online. The biggest takeaway for me is to continue to engage our customers to increase their comfort with digital banking. I love hearing “I didn’t know it was this easy!”
Tiago: The message that I’m hearing is that our customers want us to be there for them, when they need us the most. When I go through the engagement numbers for our relief measures, or through our NPS, I feel good — not because of our performance metrics, but because we’re doing what is just and fair. In moments like this, designers can go simple or they can go fancy, as long as they go right.
Can you give us a sneak preview on what customers can expect next?
Raf: The more signals we receive, the easier we will make it for our customers. We are looking to customize the experience based on how many times they visited us and how long their visit lasted, what content they viewed last and what did they not find helpful — all this to bring new options up to surface when they visit us next time.
Tiago: I think the most exciting next step for Scotia Support is dynamic content. This means that we’ll be able to offer content that is relevant to individual customer profiles. People can also expect a better segmentation of relief measures, news, and advice. Soon some audiences will even have their own dedicated experience on the site.
If you’re a Scotiabank customer experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19, relief measures are available. Please visit Scotia Support to find out more.
