TIAA Cash Withdrawals

Improve transaction drop-off rates by upwards of 50%, reducing calls to support center

User problem

Inability to navigate the process for withdrawing money

Frustrated with the process

Don’t understand various phases of the transaction

Don’t want to spend the time to do the transaction online

Intimidated dealing with money online

Project goals

Create user-friendly experience to help customers withdraw cash from their accounts

Set expectations for what customers will need, and how long the process will take.

Reassure them along the way that they are doing the right thing.

Simplify by defaulting to “keep current investment mix” and allow more savvy customers to make their own decisions

Create connection with complimentary features such as: decision support, virtual assistant, and SMS support

Reduce calls the call center

Research

Taking a systems thinking and a design thinking approach to these problems, revealed that the issues were not related to one page only. Rather, the system as a whole needed a reconstruct from the bottom up.

Empathy mapping with customers

User interviews

Listening in at the telephone support center

Usability studies with a focus on content

Outcomes

Remember the initial completion rate was 24.6%. Once we launched the new experience, rates went up significantly over time, with an over 50% bump in completion rates, thereby reducing calls to the support center and saving the company millions of dollars in answering questions and walking customers through a poorly designed experience.

Next steps

Continue to explore where drop-offs are happening with user interviews, usability studies, and further research with the goal of getting near a 100% completion rate.

Apply learnings to other transactional experiences.