Acquisition Journeys: Advisor shopping experience

Project Overview

Assessing 7 key J.P. Morgan Wealth Management acquisition journeys in the Chase Mobile® app to identify opportunities for enhancing the user experience and boosting conversion rates for affluent prospects.

We heuristically evaluated 7 key journeys based on the first three shopping stages within the mobile app:

Process

Our team conducted a design-led 3-week audit to identify potential opportunities for improving the advisor shopping experience and optimizing conversion. The audit team consisted of members from Design, Product, Marketing, and UX Research. The steps we took included:

1. Aligning on the 7 key entry point journeys.
2. Mapping out skeleton prototypes for each journey.
3. Agreeing on the heuristic principles to focus on.
4. Facilitating a collaborative virtual workshop to identify gaps and opportunities.
5. Analyzing drop-offs across intended flows to pinpoint the biggest opportunities.
6. Synthesizing our findings into 5 key themes.
7. Aligning on next steps and sharing out with cross-team dependencies.

Results

We assessed the journeys, uncovering 132 gaps, and synthesized our findings into 5 key themes to guide the 2024 acquisition journey roadmap, with the goal of increasing higher quality inquiries and advised account openings.

We also identified key opportunities already in progress, as well as those with potential for inclusion in a future roadmap that require longer-term discovery.
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Conducting the Heuristic Analysis

We focused on 7 key acquisition journeys within the mobile app, concentrating on the following entry points:

Mapping the journey

I then created a skeleton prototype to accurately capture each entry point journey. Starting from the overview dashboard, I mapped out each step the user would take to reach the product landing page, which includes a contact form for requesting details about working with an advisor. Below is an example of the skeleton prototype.
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Heuristic Principles

I then facilitated a meeting where our team agreed on 10 usability heuristic principles for user interface design from the Nielsen Norman Group to guide our audit, and we prioritized the key heuristics to focus on.

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Virtual Workshop: Identifying Gaps and Opportunities

I led a collaborative virtual workshop with representatives from design, product, data, and research to identify gaps and opportunities. Before the workshop, each participant conducted their own assessment based on the principles we had previously aligned on. Our goal was to uncover user experience gaps, identify opportunities, and highlight what was being done well.

During the workshop, we consolidated our findings into a single FigJam file, reviewing each screen according to the shopping stage.

5 Key Themes Emerge

I collaborated with our UX researcher to synthesize our findings into 5 key themes. The themes are:

1. Out of Context

Parts of the experience have click to actions (CTAs) and other modules that may not relate to what precedes them and thus appear out of context – some break the flow of the user's intent and add friction to the experience. In other places, there is an opportunity to take advantage of the context and place contextual CTAs that can aid conversion.

Example:

1. The CTA on an SDI client dashboard appears in context of their investments, order status, positions etc. It follows a break up of their asset allocation and reads ‘Explore ways to Invest’ which suggests an exploration of other asset classes rather than advisory services.
2. When a user clicks on this CTA, it brings up a bottom nav that leads with ‘Trade on your own’ which is irrelevant to an existing SDI client.
3. A user gets to ‘The Know’ by clicking on ‘Top Stories’ and similar modules that elude to exploring and reading articles for education. When the user lands in ‘The Know’, they are met with an ‘Invest your way’ CTA that breaks the flow and intent of the user.

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2. Too Much

Some key screens in the experience are lengthy on mobile devices, especially with limited attention spans. Lengthiness is due in part to repetition of phrasing and content presenting opportunities to be more succinct. Improved narratives and reduction of duplicate content will help users from feeling overwhelmed.

Example 1:

Example 2:

1. Duplicate information is displayed prominently at the top of the page. The cash bonus offer is referenced four times in the view. Overall, the product landing pages are long on mobile. 

2. The questions and answers in the product finder quiz are repetitive. Additionally, there isn't an option available for users who want advice and have less than $25k.

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3. Why J.P. Morgan?

Pages that are meant to explain our specific offerings focus heavily on product offerings alone and can lean into J.P. Morgan benefits. Key differentiators are buried within lengthy pages and risk going unnoticed. Parts of the experience where a user is likely to ’understand’ lead straight to contact forms and may cause drop off as the user expects to learn about our services.

Example:

1. Users who arrive at the Ways to Invest and the Advisory services landing pages lack meaningful content explaining the reasons for choosing an account type. The advisory products have names that are similar and don't clearly indicate the type service they offer. This similarity makes it challenging for users to remember and differentiate between the products easily. 

2. The pages aren't mobile optimized, with excess padding and content making pages lengthy and comparison difficult on smaller screens.

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4. Convenience Lag

While some parts of the experience are functional, they lag current established digital behaviors and thus by comparison appear relatively inconvenient to the user. This especially impacts those users who belong to the ‘Convenience Seeker’ archetype that is one of our key target segments.

Example:

1. Users seeking information about Private Client Advisors are redirected outside the Chase app to a browser, leading them to the public Chase.com website for pricing details, which disrupts the main app experience.
2. Users on the Know, who are in the exploration phase are being prompted to visit LinkedIn, redirecting traffic to an external source instead of keeping them within the Chase experience.

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5. Choosing is hard

Selecting between the three offerings is challenging the way it is presented within the experience. Copy for the choices we offer may not be comprehensible to users who do not understand our business intimately.

Example:

1. In the prospect dashboard users would find it difficult to choose between the three product offerings because the content for these choices aren't comprehensive enough, especially for those unfamiliar with the business. Without helpful content or clear hierarchy users would find it challenging to select the most suitable service for their needs.

2. The Cross Line of Business Meeting Scheduler flow does not effectively differentiate between reasons to meet and product offerings, making it challenging for users to select the right service. Additionally, the flow is lengthy, making it difficult for users to schedule an appointment easily and quickly.
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Conclusion & Next Steps

Before this work began, Marketing independently drove the strategic agenda, while the quad team primarily served an executional role. There was no unified, customer-focused vision, and little understanding of customers' needs across their end-to-end shopping experience.

I led a design assessment of our experience, working with the quad to conduct a comprehensive customer experience evaluation of our key journeys. Together, we identified significant customer gaps.

Our next steps include:

• Finalizing and reviewing the drop-off and conversion data
• Prioritizing and aligning on the roadmap
• Conducting solutioning sessions

Our Impact

This work significantly influenced the 2024 roadmap by allocating resources for long-term discovery and quick-win initiatives. We continuously aligned to ensure we were progressively building confidence in our strategy, allowing us to prioritize higher-value initiatives together.