Dividend is an enterprise application designed to help financial advisors manage their client relationships.
The Engagement section of Dividend uses an AI recommendation engine to help financial advisors send relevant emails to their clients based on a number of criteria. More frequent client communication leads to better advisor-client relationships and additional revenue for the firm. The previous experience did not clearly communicate to advisors how they could meet their monthly client engagement goals, and why recommended emails were surfaced in the app.
Role
My role on this project was to provide insights into the key users of the application, their journeys, and UX/UI design for the portion of the app focused on managing email communications with clients.
Team
1 Business Product Owner
1 Lead UX Designer
3 Engineers
Design Tools
Sketch, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, In-person interviews
Goals
Incorporate AI communication recommendations into an easy to use and goal driven interface.
Provide a seamless cross-platform experience for advisors with varying work styles.
Allow quick access to detailed client interaction info from anywhere, so users can determine validity of recommended communications.
User Insights
Insights were developed from in-person interviews with Financial Advisors and support staff, and translated into user personas. These user personas were then used as guides for future feature developments.
Advisors generally don’t want to spend a lot of time on email communications, because they have other important daily tasks.
Each advisor runs his or her own business differently from the next, so the experience needs to be flexible enough to meet the demands of everyone and their working styles.
Advisors are VERY concerned with “spamming” clients with sales emails on a frequent basis. They need to be able to quickly double check their interactions with specific clients before sending any email communication, in order to determine the relevancy.
A New Path to Reach Engagement Goals
Understanding that each advisor and client service associate may approach their email engagement goals differently allowed us to propose a new pattern for their working process. This new pattern leveraged the AI recommendation engine, and client engagement data, to give users a choice in their approach to achieving these goals.
User-Centered Design Approach
The email engagement dashboard was designed to save advisors time by immediately communicating progress towards their monthly email engagement goal, and what actions would have the most impact on reaching this goal.
Email communications that will have the greatest impact on reaching every client in an advisor’s client book each month are brought to the forefront and encourage immediate action.
Advisors and CSAs can choose how to approach their engagement goal by choosing what section to start with.
Monthly Engagement — How can I most quickly and efficiently meet my goal?
Trending Communications — What communications are receiving the best engagement rates across the firm and do they make sense for my clients?
Clients to Contact — Who do I need to personally contact to build a strong relationship?
Providing quick access to detailed client info from anywhere in the process of sending an email is key for advisors in confirming the relevance of a recommended communication. The flow above illustrates how users can enter the ever-present Client Book, conduct a quick search, and find the pertinent info on previously recorded interactions with a particular client. Users can then simply close the client book and finish sending the email.
Mobile First for the Modern Advisor
A mobile first approach was taken in order to meet the varying daily routines of both advisors and client service associates. Unlocking the potential for users to take action on their monthly email engagement goals while waiting for their morning coffee, or in real-time during their weekly client engagement meetings.
Cross-Platform Implementation
Providing a seamless cross-platform experience empowers advisors to take back their time by choosing when and where to use Dividend.
The client book is accessed from a floating action button on mobile. When selected, the client book takes over the entire screen, allowing the user to focus on his or her search.
The tablet design shows the client book collapsed by default so users can focus on their email engagement. The expandable tab persists throughout the app.
In the desktop version of Dividend the client book is expanded by default, allowing users to perform a quick search with a single click.
Conclusion
Dividend is a representation of proprietary work completed for a financial client while working at POW Interactive. My work on this project has lead to increased adoption among financial advisors of the AI recommended email communication system across the country, and has contributed to an increase in assets under management for clients who have received these emails.