People make financial decisions in the context of something they are trying to achieve. They might be trying to feel more secure, make a difficult decision with confidence, reduce uncertainty, build wealth, buy a home or feel more in control of what happens next. The product is the thing they choose to help them make that progress.
Understanding that context is critical to designing financial products and experiences people will actually choose.
We use Jobs to be Done alongside customer experience research to understand the progress a customer is trying to make and the circumstances that make it important to them.
This goes beyond asking customers what features they want or how satisfied they are with their current provider. We look at what prompted them to reconsider their existing solution, what alternatives they considered, what attracted them towards something new and what made changing feel difficult or risky.
This gives financial organisations a clearer view of why customers choose one option over another, and what really needs to be true for them to switch.
Financial decisions are rarely purely functional. A mortgage, investment product, insurance policy or savings account may solve a practical need, but the decision can also be shaped by confidence, trust, perceived risk and how someone wants to feel about the choice they are making.
By understanding those functional, emotional and social dimensions together, we can identify the things that matter most at the point of choice.
Those insights can then shape the proposition, product experience, service model and communication around it. Instead of optimising every part of the experience equally, teams can focus on the factors that genuinely influence customer decisions.
A strong proposition needs to create enough reason for a customer to move away from what they already know.
That means understanding both sides of the decision: what is creating dissatisfaction or tension with the current solution, and what makes the new option feel meaningfully better. It also means understanding the barriers that can stop someone changing, even when they believe another product may be better for them.
This is particularly important in financial services, where switching can feel complex, consequential or uncertain.
Customer experience helps make those forces visible so that products and services can be designed around the real decision customers are making, rather than the decision we assume they are making.
Good financial products still need to be commercially viable, compliant and operationally sound.
Customer experience adds another perspective: understanding the progress customers are trying to make, why they choose one solution over another and what might prevent them from acting.
That creates a stronger basis for product strategy, proposition development and experience design, and a better chance of creating financial products that customers actively choose rather than simply tolerate.
Whether you're starting from scratch or diagnosing why something isn't working,
we'd welcome a conversation.