Objective

Key insights

Framing our research

Research planning

Our research timeline – research sprints are broken into 3 week cycles for a total of 12 weeks on this phase. We included regular check points with key people from our stakeholder team to continuously track and adjust as needed.

Outcome goals

Concluding our alignment phase, we synthesized goals and obstacles to align on project directives. These were presented back to key stakeholders for any additional input before starting our field research.

Potential obstacles

Advisory firm profiles

Below are a few examples of Advisory firm profiles we synthesized from our contextual interviews. We used these as a visual artifact to help give emphasis to differing needs across advisories. Some advisories proved more specialized than others and geared towards certain client types; while others tended to be more generalist.

Current state: Advisory onboarding journeys

We also mapped the customer experience journeys, allowing stakeholders to see the application process between advisories, end clients, and the US Bank onboarding team. By doing this, we were able to surface the differences between onboarding processes at different advisories as well as pain points in the account opening process.

Experience framework

While developing Pivot, our agency crafted an experience framework specifically for the global banking division. Framework pillars include: Service, Transparency, Seamless Delivery, and Efficiency. Our research insights were delivered within these framework pillars to help facilitate consistency in communication with our stakeholders.

Advisory firm insights

Service:

How people, systems, tools, and technology support US Bank’s strong customer relationships and brand trust.

Transparency:

Keep the customer continuously informed about account status and services.

Seamless Delivery:

Ensure that the system performs optimally. Help customers get in and out of the system quickly.

Efficiency:

Leverage insights that will allow customers to optimize their processes and scale business practices.

Delivering a solution

Recommended ideas for exploration

1. Digitized smart form

Convert the paper agreements to an interactive, digital format that asks the right questions for owner and account type.

Key Insights:

• Guide the user to the appropriate custody agreement

• Pre-populate any existing data

• Ask appropriate follow up questions when needed

• Can be completed either by the new accounts team at the advisory firm or underlying client

• Force data entry for all required fields prior to submission

• Updates to data fields or legal language would be automated, instead of manually sending a set of new docs

2. Secure documents portal

Allow clients and/or advisory firms to upload all required documents to the custody application and send everything securely at one time. Eliminate the need for docs being emailed via secure mail.

Key Insights:

• Would prevent an application from progressing without all required docs being attached

• Would also help the larger advisory firms with larger teams reduce their internal NIGO rates as a new account application could not be sent to the internal new account team unless all required docs were attached

• Firms could still collect physical documents or scans from their underlying clients, and then upload them

3. Use of e-signature

eSignature is a core piece of functionality that has to be offered to facilitate a digitized version of the custody agreement.

Key Insights:

• Flexibility is key, as some advisory firms may be slower than others to adopt eSignature, while firms that do adopt eSignature may also want to optionally accept a hard signature for certain clients.

4. New account tracker

Create a tracking repository of all account applications both current and historical that can provide a centralized record for all account-related information.

Key Insights:

• Aggregate all new account applications in one spot

• Provide a historical record of all new accounts

• Provide a roll-up dashboard view of key new account metrics

• Provide a trackable status of each application

• Notification/status update when the account is open and available for funding

• Provide awareness of when Pivot provisioning has been completed

• Link to the Pivot portal within “Welcome Emails” sent to the client directly

5. Data integration

Some clients are using third party systems (like Pegasystems) to track accounts. Allow clients to integrate data with US Bank systems via an API.

Key Insights:

• Structured data from the digitized smart application populates across core BPM systems to improve time to SLA

• Specifically, larger advisories are working with third party technology like Pega Systems to create digitized versions of US Bank’s custody agreements to better facilitate their internal processes

Integration with application data

Upon submit, an Advisory’s application would send structured application data and documents to US Bank’s internal BPMs, including their onboarding team queue.

Receiving structured data from a third party system

Same idea as above but showing an application generated via a third party system (like Pega) and integrating with an internal onboarding queue.

Initial concept sketches

Future state E2E experience journeys

Interface design

Below are examples of the interface design across different touch points (advisor, end client). The smart form can be broken into three experiences: advisor application creation; retail client application completion; and finally, advisor review before submitting to US Bank. Each stage of the smart form process can be tracked by the Account Tracker module (which houses the advisor version of the smart form).

The smart form is designed to be a responsive web application for MVP. Plans for a smart form integration with the Pivot native mobile app were flagged as a day two need.