As this project would ruffle a few feathers in the organisation and require a lot of advocacy, we decided to take the safe route and work within a controlled diary study. This would help us to unearth lots of rich qual. data, explore motivations and barriers, and reveal human stories as told through the eyes of our customers.

So, we worked with strategy agency, CrowdDNA, to locate 10 participants: Cameron, Liam, Jonathan, Lynne, Tasir, Grace K, Carli, Dominique, Fiona and Grace T, all of which were either in no debt or moderate debt. But before diving into the six sessions, it was important for us to understand why they had found themselves in their particular financial situations.

The cost of living crisis has been causing our participants to ‘feel the pinch’

77% of adults are worried about the rising costs of living, with nearly half saying that it’s the “bank’s responsibility” to help them make financial decisions. Now, more than ever, our participants (and customers generally) need help to feel confident that they are making the most of their money.

Low money confidence make it harder to seek out and engage with help. With some of the participants stating that it’s not for them, it’s uncomfortable, or that they don’t see the value in it. Take Dominique, for example, who said this:

“I’ve spoken to an advisor before to try and consolidate my debts, but I kept getting knocked back when I wasn’t eligible for their suggestions.”

Before delving into the process, it’s important to assess the overall impact

Customers experienced positive changes across all money confidence metrics (more on which later). Whether it was an emotional shift, knowledge, open doors (what are my options?), a behavioural shift, or a financial shift.

IMPACT 1 — The six week bootcamp helps customers feel more valued by TSB and closer to the institution. With an NPS score of 8/10, customers feel part of an ongoing dialogue with the MCE, having sessions dedicated to their personal circumstances. MCE’s bridged the gap between customer and institution.

IMPACT 2 — Most customers took out a new TSB product during the programme. The reasons why customers did so was due to their marked increased in confidence, ease, reciprocity and trust. They felt compelled to ‘give back’ to the MCE that had made their lives noticeably easier through simple communication.

IMPACT 3 — 9/10 customers love how the bootcamp has positively changed their relationship with money. Dominique, for instance, felt stuck at the beginning. Just small changes helped, like learning how to make more smaller, regular credit card payments and clearing smaller balances. She eventually reached the point of taking out another savings account.

Initial co-creation with MCEs to understand current help offered

As a starting point, we needed to understand why the current support offered by MCEs was limiting for customers. We interviewed four high performing MCEs about the current 1 to 1 sessions, ranging from what subject customers focus on, to queries and concerns, and next steps. Seeing as we had the MCEs on hand, we also asked them to join us in mocking up a programme that could be more helpful.

The results were very interesting. It was clear that the limited nature of the sessions (only one session over an hour) caused the discussion to feel rushed, and take many twists and turns. Rachel - an MCE - noted that a six week programme would allow customers to bring up subjects when they mattered, whether it’s “quite early on, or it might be in the middle.”

Ryan said that it’s easier to track the customers recurring spending habits over time, rather than all in one go. This usually allows him to ‘get to know’ the customer, and to prevent them from “taking out additional products” that they may not actually need.

Developing the bootcamp through assumptions and risks

After reaching a pretty solid foundation with our MCEs, we soon realised that customers needed support on a few different topics. Whether it was a general exploration of finances, making better use of digital, borrowing, saving, protection through insurance, we now had a topic for each week that MCEs could cover.

From that point, we attempted to flesh out the six weeks by considering all avenues, and noting down all possible ways it could go wrong for the customer. For instance, there was a danger that some MCEs may not give their assigned customer adequate levels of communication. This could cause them to become demotivated and uninterested with the programme. So, we questioned whether multiple MCEs could be assigned to a single customer. What problems could this cause? Do branches even have the resource to do this? Are MCEs even willing to stretch their level of commitment to work outside of their pay-grade? These were all concerns that needed to be worked through before committing.

After aligning with branch, we worked out the various touch-points for the stakeholders involved

Whilst the service itself had been designed, the logistics had not really been considered. So, whilst we knew that MCE X would meet with customer Y on Tuesday, it wasn’t clear how this would occur. This took some careful planning with CrowdDNA and branch, getting MCEs onboarded to Teams, giving customers access to communication pathways, and just generally figuring out when people would be carrying out certain tasks.

Amongst all of this, it was still very important to keep the human at the centre of the service. For instance, it was great that we had figured out how MCEs could provide notes to the customer after each session, but did the customer feel a sense of progression? How would we find out? So, by checking in with customers at critical points of the bootcamp, we prevented the service from being just a service i.e. lifeless and robotic.

We thought bringing in digital would take it to the next level… it didn’t

The interesting aspect of this project for the UX designers on the team i.e. myself and a colleague, was how we could integrate digital into an arguably physical experience. With direction from our lead researcher, we attempted to mockup a makeshift “hub” where customers could set goals and have access to notes, useful articles, and logistics on their next session. Whilst it seemed like a great idea on paper, the pushback from branch was just too aggressive. Take, for instance, the fact that not a single line of copy on our end could be perceived as “advice,” or that MCE’s weren’t able to write notes outside of stringent TSB policy.

This was a tiresome battle to fight and, whilst we eventually got the prototype live in the programme, its efficacy wasn’t felt by customers and was binned after the project ended. We didn’t feel this to be a failure on our part, but, rather, was an indication of the limitations of commercial banking, and also of how little faith TSB had in their “experts.”

Three key learnings from the bootcamp

The path to Money Confidence doesn’t always run smooth - Progression isn’t linear throughout the programme and setbacks occur.

Money Confidence isn’t a fixed state - Getting to grips with one topic doesn’t always mean feeling more confident when new situations arise.

The Money Confidence metrics are interlinked - Positive or negative shifts against one of the metrics leads to changes in others.

How had the dial shifted for each of our metrics?

Emotional shift - There are ups and downs, but customers feel more confident overall. With positive shifts trigged by new knowledge, being heard and making financial gains. But, negative shifts triggered by slow progress, feeling overwhelmed and continuing to make financial losses.

Knowledge shift - The programme mostly builds customers’ knowledge in (1) visibility of finances, (2) digital skills, and (3) demystification of money. What this means is that customers now have the confidence to make their own financial decisions on via the app, saving them money in the long run.

Open doors - the bootcamp reveals new options to manage money but it can be overwhelming. So, if the ‘doors’ feel relevant (tailored and tangible) + they feel manageable (clear and practical outcomes), then customers are more likely to choose their next door to go through (behavioural change).

The rest of the metrics showed positive change, with 9/10 customers feeling as if they are more financially better off, but also some negative habits, with customers adopting new “one-off” behaviours over long-term habits.

How the bootcamp evolves from here

Overall, the diary study was a success and made prominent some key aspects of how we should be approaching people who need more personable financial support. Whether it’s the fact that any kind friction caused frustration, or that the ideal number of sessions varied between customer, it highlighted that everyone is a person with individual needs. So be fluid, be flexible, and allow your service to be formed by the people that will truly be using them in the end.

Finally - as any kind of workable 6 week programme is far off in terms of its practicality - we’re instead looking to use this study and all of its rich data to advocate even more than we currently are. Building stronger connections with stakeholders and shifting perspectives on the direction that commercial high street banking can take.

What I learned

Delving into new territory can be both scary and rewarding -

Service design isn’t something I had explored prior to this project. But, after taking on the challenge I feel that my UX skillset has matured even more by understanding customers from a new perspective i.e. how they interact with services, be it physical or digital.

Failure is ok -

This one is pretty simple, but the process leading up to it can feel chaotic and complex. Failure on this project showed me that, whilst digital can do many brilliant things for people, it’s hubristic to believe that it can solve every problem out there.

Expand your horizons and you’ll see the bigger picture in every project you do, much more quickly -

By having a more complete set of skills, integrating data, development, service, technology, stakeholder management etc., future projects will seem less daunting and, instead, you’ll feel a “get up and go” energy. It’s all about having the confidence to see the bigger picture, even when you may only be close to ground level in your career.