Financial Health Check
Purpose
The Financial Health Check (FHC) tool is used widely by agents in the field to help a customer better understand their financial needs while planning for their future. It essentially is a financial calculator that takes into various factors that a customer might consider when making plans such as children going to university, or buying a new home.
As a tool, this guides both the customer and agent to be better informed. For the customer, they learn how much they need to save or invest, and for the agent, it provides a ballpark figure that enables the agent to start thinking about what products might best suit the customers needs.
Interactivity to stay engaged
One of the key factors for this update was to have a design that was intuitive enough for an agent to use seamlessly as a part of their sales flow, and the other was one that gave the customer a sense of trust and comfort while using it themselves.
The revamp brought in a number of improvements that modernized the tool so that it incorporated additional polish towards interactivity such as draggable card sorts and numerous micro-animations.
One of the simple transitions we prototyped that elevated the perception of the tool
User testing & prototype challenges
We encountered numerous obstacles in convincing stakeholders the value and importance of running user tests during the early prototyping stages. This was something they weren't familiar with, as historically speaking, they would have look towards an external vendor to get the job done.
It took a lot of socialising and building trust with our stakeholders, so they that they'd be receptive to validating early and helping with establishing a group of users to test on.
"I have no idea how the current calculator works, in fact I often just skip using it. Seeing this version however, it feels a lot more intuitive to use."
While we may not have been able to test with our customers, validating the prototype with the seasoned agents yielded a lot of great insight and ultimately drove the team and the project to design better.
Most importantly, the user tests and the outcomes of the project delivery really helped our team strike a chord with the local business unit to create a better working relationship.
We user tested agents of different levels of working experience, as well as varying degrees of comfort when making use of technology.
Closing thoughts
A great learning experience overall. One that highlighted how cultural factors can greatly shape the outcomes of a project.
However strong the organisation desires to digitally transform, means little when the most important part of the business, the people, aren't all paddling at the same pace. It takes resilience and patience to educate and build rapport so we're all working towards a common goal.