Fruitful v2

TLDR

Service Designer @ Fruitful

March 2022 - August 2022

Created a deeply empathetic service experience that delivered relevant and trustworthy financial advice to millennials to improve their relationship with money over time. 

Tools:
Miro, Figma, Salesforce, Google Drive, Google Doc Templates

Methods:
Workshop facilitation, research synthesis, blueprints, standard operating procedures, training, UX design, service design

Fruitful needed to provide members with more than just an app. 

In March 2022, Fruitful beta launched their mobile app which gave members access to a library of articles and videos breaking down financial topics, as well as the ability to chat and schedule calls with financial planners. In beta, we realized Fruitful was missing a POV on how to approach and deliver financial advice in a way that’s differentiated. We needed to develop the experience of talking to financial planners in order to keep members engaged and convey the value of Fruitful as a service.

 

I began research by compiling the team’s existing work and facilitating workshops with the financial planners to better understand the landscape and how Fruitful could be different.  

Screenshot of the table where I compiled all of the inputs from existing research and workshops

 

The research uncovered a gap in the market and an opportunity for Fruitful to provide a differentiated service. 

The current market is filled with Fintechs whose approach to finances are similar, if not the same. It’s all robo-advisors, goals based planning, or crypto. No one is focusing on how to make your money work for you.

Financial plans fail because they are static artifacts that reflect a single point in time. What we give to Members should be dynamic so it can remain relevant, adapt to changing needs, and encourage continuous engagement.

People want to learn healthier habits, but as we all know change can be hard. What we give to Members should make change less daunting. Learning healthier habits requires changing behavior and that takes time. So what we provide has to not overwhelm the Member with what's ahead.

 

I turned the findings into hypotheses to beta test

Kickstarting the Fruitful experience with an intro call from an assigned financial planner quickly creates value outside of the app and distinguishes the human and technology aspects of the service. 

Using the intro call to discuss the emotional elements of finances and what your money can do for you will reduce anxiety, unlock larger aspirations and ultimately help the member reach financial freedom.

Scheduling the next touchpoint at the end of each call will set the foundation for regular sessions and establish a cadence early on in the relationship.

Giving member’s a dynamic artifact that outlines the tasks they need to complete to reach financial freedom will encourage continuous engagement, lead to healthier habits over time, and make the road to financial freedom less daunting.

 

Within two sprints, I stood up a service experience that addressed the emotional and aspirational elements of finances while creating a continuous cycle of touch points between the member and financial planner. 

Created the process

Mapped how the Member’s experience, financial planner’s experience, tools, processes and protocols for the intro call and subsequent follow up sessions came together. This flow was used to identify where supplemental tools and materials were needed, which drove a lot of the work in the sprint. For example, having a discussion guide the financial planners could leverage during the intro call to ensure each Member is receiving the same empathetic experience that uncovers financial anxieties and approaches money through an aspirational and lifestyle lens. (see below).

Created the blueprint

Utilized Google Doc and Google Drive to templatize and store Member facing materials. Google Suite is a highly familiar and easily accessible toolset that doesn’t require the Member to download/sign up for additional apps, is interactive and collaborative in nature, and has built in notifications. Additionally, Google docs can be templatized to provide consistency and efficiency.

Gave Members a “financial blueprint”, which is a living and breathing artifact that takes goals based planning one step further by reframing finances as what your money can do for you. For example, if a Member wanted to quit their job and move to Fiji then the financial blueprint would help them reach their financial freedom of living wherever they want. Using a branded and templatized Google Doc, the blueprint breaks down the Members larger freedom into bite-sized milestones and empowers the Member to take control of their financial life by providing actionable tasks to get there. The financial planner would fill out the blueprint template based on their conversation with the Member during the intro call and would share it with the Member as a way to introduce accountability and an interactive moment. (see below).

 

I gathered feedback from employees and beta members and learned that version one was missing the mark.

Missed opportunities:

  • The intro call is an early opportunity to demonstrate how Fruitful is different and provide immediate value to the Member, but this opportunity was being missed by jumping straight into the questions in the discussion guide.  

  • Receiving the blueprint with instructions on how to use it takes away the opportunity for the member to buy into the plan.

Challenges:

  • Members didn’t know what to expect during the intro call and would come with burning questions, making it difficult for the financial planner to stay on track and cover all of the questions in the discussion guide. 

  • Addressing the emotional and aspirational aspects of finances is a value add, but becomes detrimental when it’s the sole focus of the intro call and can’t accommodate financially advanced Members.

  • The financial planners didn’t have enough information after the intro call and were having a hard time filling out the blueprint template.

 

The next iteration focused on managing expectations and balancing the tactical and emotional aspects of finances, resulting in a 90% NPS score from beta members.

Added steps before and during the intro call to set expectations, scaled back emotional questions in favor of tactical financial check ups, added buy-in moments from member

 

Lessons learned

Fruitful challenged me to think of radically simple solutions and move quickly to stand something up. Once version one was implemented it didn’t take long to realize what was and was not working, which helped the team stand up the next iteration. Additionally, working on this project taught me a valuable lesson around balance. A service doesn’t need to solely focus on the emotional side of things in order to provide an empathetic and compassionate member experience.