The Opportunity
As the Bitcoin bull market slowed & reversed, iTC's primary KPI's on account funding took a drastic downturn. After digging into Tableau reporting, I concluded that the previously held notion that IRA Cash Contributions being the primary source of funding & trade revenue we're incorrect, IRA Transfers actually represented about 60% of total revenue and AUM.
As the Product Owner & Designer, I conducted internal & external research & design into building a first of its kind semi autonomous B2B automation for transferring IRA Accounts ~75% faster.
The Original Design & Results
The user flow that ITC had leveraged from inception heavily relied 3 factors: customer support via email & phone, users completing complex financial documents, & heavily manual internal processes that created PII exposure & potential internal user error.
As the market turned, these factors began to work against ITC as conversion rates dropped from ~80% to 25% & average funding team increased from 14 to 22 days.
The Original User Journey
It's important to understand the entire user journey, as once an ITC user had submitted a request to transfer most of journey then took place out of the application. Additionally, I realized at this stage that this design should not only cater to our end users, but our internal Financial Operations team as well.
Setting Goals & KPI's
The high level goals of this overhaul directly addressed the 3 primary factors that doomed the original model.
Keep the user in app & have no need for them to contact support staff via email or phone
Do not put the onus of completing complex documentation on the user, instead collect this data within the initial Transfer Request
Eliminate all PII exposure & utilize automations to limit end & internal user error
Additionally, I wanted this update to have the following KPI outcomes:
Conversion Rate >75%
Churn <25%
Average Funding Time <7 Days
Competitive Research
To begin, I researched two primary competitors, Alto IRA & Fidelity, to see how they processed an IRA Transfer. I came away with the following conclusions
Both utilize digital signatures, ITC only accepts physical signatures
Fidelity collects all data needed in the initial request to transfer
Both keep the user in application, with little need to contact support at any time as there is continued in app support after a request has been made
Understanding the User
A key advantage I had throughout this build was a repository of ~200,000 support tickets where I could examine thousands of user interactions with our CX & FinOps teams through their IRA Transfer. After analyzing these I found 3 common themes that I used for qualitative guidance.
Users are in a hurry & want to deal with the ins & outs of IRA Transfers as little as possible.
Users need their hand held throughout the process, not just when filling out documents.
Users are under the expectation that ITC is leveraging automation to speed things up.
Aligning Goals & Setting Pain Points
Once I had a deep understanding of Fidelity, Alto & our processes, I collaborated with our Analytics, FinOps & CX teams to align our goals & how these would address known pain points backed by qualitative and quantitative data.
Forcing users to complete the Transfer Form
By only collecting the bare bones data, we force users to complete the form.
Collect All the Data
We only collect a part of the data needed, by collecting it in a holistic & accurate method we can increase speed & accuracy.
Reliance on CX
By relying on CX we create additional points of failure & PII leakage. Email support should not be utilized when exchanging confidential data.
Poor Communication
ITC communicates that a user has finished, when in reality they are far from the finish line. We need to clearly communicate the status, next steps, & CTA's throughout the journey.
Eliminate Manual BE Procedures
FinOps is plagued with manual processes, by leveraging basic API endpoints we can automate some of these steps and eliminate user error.
Expand our CRM
ITC's CRM does not account for most of the fields necessary. We need to expand its capabilities to keep this data securely housed to ensure security & speed.
User Flow
From here, I drafted a new user flow that eliminated multiple points of failure & enabled backend automation to drastically reduce time before a request is sent to a custodian.
The Results
This release increased initial conversion rates by 350%, reduced churn by 42%, reduced CX tickets & calls by 84% & had an average funding time of 5 days.