VIZUALISATION TOOL TO SUPPORT THE DESIGN OF A CREDIT-AS-A-SERVICE OFFER

1. Challenge

I am currently working in a Fintech called BOT.ly and I am responsible of our Credit-As- Service offer for SMEs/ Freelancers which is live since January 2010 è  https://buck-flores.com/list/postshomepage.jsp   It took us 8 months to deliver our “MVP and we basically started from scratch in 2014.  In order to launch this offer/ activity, we used several tools and different methodologies related to  “Design Thinking” which were particularly useful: brainstorm based on market data collected, focus  group with potential customers, journey mapping to define/ optimize our internal process … and,  above all, a collective and iterative approach with the project team since the beginning.  In this paper, I will focus on how we defined our customer promise / value proposition which has  (to my view) really made the difference.

2. Selection  As we were fighting with traditional banks with strong experience / credentials on the credit  market, our challenge was really to come up with a real differentiating credit offer that could be  adopted by a large number of new customers.  We then quickly figured out that “market data” and “gut feeling” would not be sufficient to do so  and that we must listen to customer’s voice.  Therefore, we decided to use focus groups with potential customers and mind mapping tool in  order to (i) get a better understanding of their existing customer journeys/ the pain points  encountered and to (ii) define relevant criterias to build our value proposition/ customer promise.

3. Application  FOCUS GROUP FOR the “WHAT IS?” QUESTION  First, we contacted different freelancers and company managers from our professional network to  see if they could be interested in having an open discussion of their credit experience with  traditional banks. We tried to a have a limited number of persons (~ 12 persons) working in  different business sectors.  Though, we finally succeeded in having 10 persons and we invited them to a lunch working session  in our office.  During this session, we asked them general questions on their relationships with their current  banks, the type of credit they consumed, the frequency, the pricing and particularly focus the  discussion on the pain points encountered.  What came up is the 4 following findings

-  “in traditional banks, subscription process is not fully digitalized” (needs to have a physical  appointment with a banker),

-  “it is too slow” (it takes 10 days to have an answer either positive or negative on your credit  application),

-  “traditional banks are asking to many documents just to study our credit application”,

-  “we don’t know if our credit application is accepted or not and it takes time to get an  answer”.

MIND MAPPING TOOL FOR DESIGN CRITERIAS DEFINITION  Therefore, we propose them to attend to another session in order to dig these ideas and identify  areas of improvement.  For this second session, we used mind mapping tool with a paperboard and stickers to work as a  group on those areas of improvement on each finding identified:   1. DIGITALIZATION, 2. SPEED, 3. UX / DOCUMENTATION and 4. ELIGIBILITY ANSWER  The group really “played the game” and suggested many ideas that we wrapped-up of the end of  the session and that have been driving the design of our offer   => an offer 100% Digital which allows with the minimum of info/ documentation provided by the  client to get a credit in a fast and seamless way.

4. Insight  What I learnt from this project phase is the following:

1. Customer’s voice is most important than your own beliefs and convictions  2. It helps to identity areas of improvements which you would not have thought of (e.g. ask for

less documents than traditional banks, providing quickly a positive answer is more important  than sending quickly the funds to the clients…)

3. It comforts you in the direction you are taking to build your product  4. It is key to work with a small group in order to really identify and dig ideas/ suggestions  5. It is very powerful to use visualization tool in order to foster ideas generation and allow

everyone to participate/ express themselves

5. Approach    If I had to redo it, I would have used the journey mapping tool to co-construct our onboarding  process / user screens with potential customers.  Indeed, and after those two sessions, we built our MVP internally within our project team and,  once live, we had it tested with real customers.  I guess this would have allowed us to limit the number of product evolutions, iterations with our  Dev team and get a better product faster!


VIZUALISATION TOOL TO SUPPORT THE DESIGN OF A CREDIT - AS - A - SERVICE OFFER 1 . Challenge I am currently working in a Fintech called BOT.ly and I am responsible of our Credit - As- Service offer for SMEs/ Freelancers which is live since January 2010 è https://buck-flores.com/list/postshomepage.jsp It took us 8 months to deliver our “ MVP and we basically started from scratch in 2014 . In order to launch this offer/ activity , we used several tools and different methodologies related to “ Design Thinking ” which were particularly useful : brainstorm based on market data collected , focus group with potential customers , journey mapping to define/ optimize our internal process … and , above all , a collective and iterative approach with the project team since the beginning . In this paper , I will focus on how we defined our customer promise / value proposition which has ( to my view ) really made the difference . 2 . Selection As we were fighting with traditional banks with strong experience / credentials on the credit market , our challenge was really to come up with a real differentiating credit offer that could be adopted by a large number of new customers . We then quickly figured out that “ market data ” and “ gut feeling ” would not be sufficient to do so and that we must listen to customer ’s voice . Therefore , we decided to use focus groups with potential customers and mind mapping tool in order to ( i ) get a better understanding of their existing customer journeys/ the pain points encountered and to ( ii ) define relevant criterias to build our value proposition/ customer promise . 3 . Application FOCUS GROUP FOR the “ WHAT IS ? ” QUESTION First , we contacted different freelancers and company managers from our professional network to see if they could be interested in having an open discussion of their credit experience with traditional banks . We tried to a have a limited number of persons ( ~ 12 persons ) working in different business sectors . Though , we finally succeeded in having 10 persons and we invited them to a lunch working session in our office . During this session , we asked them general questions on their relationships with their current banks , the type of credit they consumed , the frequency , the pricing and particularly focus the discussion on the pain points encountered . What came up is the 4 following findings - “ in traditional banks , subscription process is not fully digitalized ” ( needs to have a physical appointment with a banker ) , - “ it is too slow ” ( it takes 10 days to have an answer either positive or negative on your credit application ) , - “ traditional banks are asking to many documents just to study our credit application ” , - “ we do n’t know if our credit application is accepted or not and it takes time to get an answer ” . MIND MAPPING TOOL FOR DESIGN CRITERIAS DEFINITION Therefore , we propose them to attend to another session in order to dig these ideas and identify areas of improvement . For this second session , we used mind mapping tool with a paperboard and stickers to work as a group on those areas of improvement on each finding identified : 1 . DIGITALIZATION , 2 . SPEED , 3 . UX / DOCUMENTATION and 4 . ELIGIBILITY ANSWER The group really “ played the game ” and suggested many ideas that we wrapped - up of the end of the session and that have been driving the design of our offer = > an offer 100 % Digital which allows with the minimum of info/ documentation provided by the client to get a credit in a fast and seamless way . 4 . Insight What I learnt from this project phase is the following : 1 . Customer ’s voice is most important than your own beliefs and convictions 2 . It helps to identity areas of improvements which you would not have thought of ( e.g. ask for less documents than traditional banks , providing quickly a positive answer is more important than sending quickly the funds to the clients … ) 3 . It comforts you in the direction you are taking to build your product 4 . It is key to work with a small group in order to really identify and dig ideas/ suggestions 5 . It is very powerful to use visualization tool in order to foster ideas generation and allow everyone to participate/ express themselves 5 . Approach If I had to redo it , I would have used the journey mapping tool to co - construct our onboarding process / user screens with potential customers . Indeed , and after those two sessions , we built our MVP internally within our project team and , once live , we had it tested with real customers . I guess this would have allowed us to limit the number of product evolutions , iterations with our Dev team and get a better product faster !