Let’s face it, financial services can sometimes feel…well, impersonal. A maze of complex jargon, frustrating hold times, and impersonal interactions can leave you feeling like just another number. But what if there was a way to bridge the gap, to create a financial services experience that feels as friendly and helpful as your favorite coffee shop? Enter Design Thinking to Improve Customer Experience. This human-centered approach puts your needs first, ensuring financial services cater to you, not the other way around.

In this blog, we will cover the following topics: 

  1. The challenges faced by customers in the financial services sector
  2. The benefit of using Design Thinking (DT) to overcome these challenges
  3. A real-world example of DT in action in the financial services sector

Customer Experience Challenges in The Financial Services Sector

Customers in the financial services sector run into several hurdles. Here are some of the common ones:

  • Security Concerns: Financial data is sensitive, and data breaches are a major customer concern. They worry about identity theft and unauthorized access to their accounts.

  • Keeping Up With Technology: The finance industry constantly adopts new technologies, from mobile banking to robo-advisors. This can be overwhelming for some customers, who may need help to keep up with the latest tools and how to use them effectively.

  • Difficult Customer Service: Long wait times and impersonal interactions can be frustrating for customers who need help with their finances. Additionally, some customers may not have the digital literacy required to navigate online banking systems and prefer a more traditional in-person experience.

  • Lack of Financial Literacy: Many customers don’t have a strong understanding of financial products and services. This can make it difficult for them to make informed decisions about their finances, such as choosing the right investment or loan product.

  • High Fees: Traditional financial institutions can be known for charging high fees for various services. This can be a burden for customers, especially those on a tight budget.

  • Keeping Up With Changing Needs: Customer needs and expectations are constantly evolving. Financial institutions need to be adaptable and offer a variety of products and services to meet the needs of different customer demographics.

Effectively Overcoming The Challenges With Design Thinking

Design Thinking is simply a human-centered approach to problem-solving. It’s about putting yourself in your customer’s shoes and using empathy to understand their needs, wants, and frustrations. By applying this approach to financial services, we can create experiences that are not only functional but also feel genuinely helpful and supportive.

Read more: Importance of Design Thinking for CXOs and Business Owners

So, how exactly can design thinking transform your financial experience? Let’s dive into the five key stages of this process:

1. Empathize: Walk a Mile in Your Customer’s Shoes

The first step is all about understanding the people you’re designing for. This isn’t about generic customer profiles; it’s about getting real with real people. Here are some ways to build empathy:

  • User Interviews: Schedule in-depth conversations with a diverse group of customers. Ask open-ended questions, listen actively, and try to understand their financial goals, anxieties, and daily routines.
  • Customer Journey Mapping: Imagine the steps a customer takes when using a specific service, like applying for a loan. Map out their entire experience, noting their emotional highs and lows at each touchpoint.

2. Define: Sharpen Your Focus

Once you’ve gathered a wealth of information, it’s time to synthesize it. Look for recurring themes and pain points. What are the biggest frustrations your customers face? What unmet needs keep them up at night? From this analysis, you can define a clear and actionable problem statement.

For example, instead of a generic “improve loan application process,” you might identify a specific pain point like “streamline the online application for young adults unfamiliar with traditional financial jargon.”

3. Ideate: Unleash Your Inner Brainstorming Machine

Here comes the fun part! Now that you understand the problem, it’s time to generate a bunch of creative solutions. Forget about limitations; the goal is to come up with as many ideas as possible, no matter how crazy they might seem initially. 

Let’s look at how Design Thinking’s Ideation step can address the challenge of Difficult Customer Service in the financial services sector.

Traditionally, customer service has been impersonal and slow, often relying on phone calls and physical branches. Here’s how Ideation can help:

  • Brainstorming Solutions: A team might come up with various ideas to improve customer service. Examples include:

    • Omnichannel Support: A 24/7 chat interface alongside phone and email support for easy access.
    • AI-powered Chatbots: An AI assistant to answer basic questions and troubleshoot minor issues, freeing up human agents for complex problems.
    • Personalized Service: Utilizing customer data to anticipate needs and offer proactive solutions.

  • Thinking Outside the Box: The team could explore unconventional solutions:

    • Gamification: A points system that rewards customers for using self-service options or completing financial tasks.
    • Virtual Reality Branch Experiences: Using VR to provide remote customers with an immersive and personalized banking experience.

  • Quantity over Quality: Encouraging a “no bad ideas” environment where all ideas are considered, even seemingly outlandish ones. It might spark connections or unexpected solutions.

Through Ideation, the team generates a wide range of possibilities to improve customer service. These ideas can then be refined and tested in the later stages of Design Thinking, ultimately leading to a more efficient, user-friendly, and satisfying customer service experience.

4. Prototype: Build Rough Sketches, Not Skyscrapers

Don’t get caught up in technical details yet. Instead, create quick and easy prototypes of your most promising ideas. This could be a basic mockup of a mobile app screen, a role-playing scenario for a new customer service approach, or even a sketch on a napkin.

The key is to get something tangible in front of users as soon as possible – even if it’s far from perfect.

5. Test: Gather Feedback and Refine

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Put your prototypes in front of real customers and gather their honest feedback. What works? What confuses them? What can be improved? Remember, the goal here isn’t to get a gold star; it’s to learn and iterate.

Design Thinking in Action: Real-World Examples

Now that we’ve explored the theory, let’s see how design thinking is being applied in the financial services industry:

Design Thinking in Action to improve customer experience

  • Simplified Mobile Banking: Imagine being able to manage your finances with the same ease you use to order a pizza. Through design thinking, banks are creating intuitive mobile apps that cater to the needs of tech-savvy customers.
  • Personalized Financial Planning: Financial services are no longer one-size-fits-all. By understanding individual goals and risk tolerance, design thinking helps create personalized financial plans that go beyond traditional cookie-cutter products.
  • Gamification for Savings: Let’s face it, saving money isn’t always the most exciting activity. Design thinking can be used to create gamified experiences that make saving fun and rewarding, especially for young adults.

Zerodha, the stock-trading app, employed practices that closely align with the principles of Design Thinking. 

Here’s how:

  1. Focus on User Experience (UX): Zerodha prioritized a user-friendly interface for their Kite trading platform. They understood the complexities of finance and aimed to make investing approachable. This aligns with the user-centric approach of design thinking.

  2. User Research: They researched to understand customer needs and pain points. This feedback informed design decisions for their platform, another core tenet of design thinking.

  3. Mobile-First Design: Recognizing the mobile preferences of their users, Zerodha designed a fast and user-friendly mobile app. This demonstrates their adaptability and responsiveness to user needs.

These approaches helped Zerodha become a popular choice for Indian investors and traders due to their low-cost brokerage, user-friendly platform, and focus on education. They are now a reputable company with a large customer base.

The Takeaway: Design Thinking is a Journey, Not a Destination

Design thinking isn’t a magic bullet but it’s a powerful tool that can revolutionize the customer experience in financial services. It’s about creating an ongoing conversation with your customers, constantly evolving and improving based on their feedback. By putting the “human” back in “financial services,” we can build a more empathetic, engaging, and ultimately, more successful industry. Think “Truly Humanancial services”!

This is just the beginning of your design thinking journey. There are a few additional things to keep in mind:

design thinking journey

  1. Building a Culture of Empathy: Design thinking thrives in an environment that values empathy and user-centricity. Encourage collaboration across departments, from product development to customer service. Train employees to actively listen to customer concerns and translate them into actionable insights.
  2. Design Thinking for Continuous Improvement: Don’t think of design thinking as a one-time project. It’s a continuous cycle of gathering feedback, iterating, and improving. Regularly revisit your customer personas, conduct user testing, and stay up-to-date on evolving customer needs and financial technologies.
  3. Embrace Failure as a Learning Opportunity: The beauty of design thinking is that it allows for rapid prototyping and testing. Don’t be afraid to experiment, even if some ideas fail. Every failed prototype is a valuable learning experience that can inform future iterations.
  4. Design Thinking Beyond Products: Design thinking isn’t limited to creating new financial products. It can be applied to improve internal processes, enhance customer service interactions, and even redesign physical branch layouts to create a more welcoming and user-friendly experience.

The Future of Financial Services: Human-Centered and Design-Driven

By embracing design thinking, financial institutions can move away from a product-centric approach and truly focus on the people they serve. Imagine a future where financial services feel less like a chore and more like a trusted partner on your financial journey. This is the power of human-centered design in action.

By fostering a culture of empathy, continuous learning, and a willingness to experiment, financial institutions can leverage the power of design thinking to create a brighter future for both their customers and their businesses. Remember, the most successful financial experiences are built not on complex algorithms, but on a deep understanding of the human needs and aspirations they aim to serve.

About the author

Arpita Roy is a dreamer and a strong believer in the design thinking process. She firmly believes that tapping into one’s innovation is vital for success, and design thinking and creativity play a key role in understanding human behavior and solving complex problems.

Before joining Humane Design and Innovation Consulting LLP, she worked on multiple design projects. She has more than 17+ years of industry experience across various domains. She has helped startups in conceptualizing and designing brand identity.

We at Humane Design strongly believe in the human ethos and draw inspiration from humans and other elements of nature to design innovative solutions for organizations of all sizes. We will be glad to be your success partner. Email us your requirements at explore@humaned.in.Connect with Us!

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