Customer Service Evolution, Powered by AI
Varo Bank
A smarter, more powerful way to manage your account in good times and bad.
Role
Design Lead for Strategy, User Research, UX, UI
Bringing online servicing to a digital-first bank
While ramping up on Varo's existing app and web experiences, my UX audit identified a few key servicing opportunities. Two glaring shortcomings were that online self-service was almost non-existent and that customers had to call Varo support — and then wait in long queues — for even the smallest of issues.
Increase functionality fast by capturing low hanging fruit first
The servicing product owner and I evaluated which functionality gaps drove outsized call volume and prioritized a series of quick productization sprints to address the highest value improvements, drastically driving down costs in a short timeframe.
Servicing that anticipates your needs, preprimed for when you need it
Next, to stimulate a deeper conversation about the strategic direction of the Servicing Team, I pulled together a longterm vision proposal — with AI at the center, powering everything.
A world where Varo:
Knows you inside and out and proactively predicts your needs based on things like your behaviors, account states, and trends for people who bank like you.
Provides a first-in-class batched disputes experience with timely notifications and hyper-accurate statuses in simple to find places.
Has an intuitive app and web IA that clearly delineates settings and services.
Creates global search capabilities where customers can find immediate answers to common questions and locate minute details about any transaction.
Completely eliminates the need to wait on the phone to get great customer service with a real person.
IA enhancements that reduce need for service, create space to deliver better service
While re-envisioning the Home and My Varo dashboards as spaces that instantly give customers the time sensitive information they need — like alerting them when they have changes to outstanding issues such as a dispute, and informing customers about existing Varo products and services relevant to their unique banking habits — I championed for a series IA enhancements that better organize the spaces for findability, extensibility, and decreased call volume.
Turning Insights Into Innovations
Varo wanted to reduce costs, increase customer loyalty, and positively impact the customer experience. During my audit, I had identified that as a digital-first bank, live chat was a high-potential cost-savings opportunity for the business, one that could provide additional value and ease for customers and result in operational cost savings.
A mix of one-on-one and group interviews with customer service representatives painted a rich picture of their day-to-day, and clearly illuminated the most cumbersome and emotionally distressing issues service representatives and customers frequently encountered. Long wait times and slow processes for simple issues eroded customer trust, and made urgent situations feel almost unbearable.
Based on our initial estimation that chat would be 3x more efficient than phone support, and 20% more efficient than email, addressing these common pain points would also greatly benefit the business bottom-line.
It was a win-win opportunity for everyone, and upon review, company leadership made the call to fully resource and invest in an AI-powered chat platform called Varo Chat.
Design Solutioning
As I ideated potential solutions, I wanted to ensure the Varo Chat experience was always available where you need, easily identifiable as a chat platform, and that it is easy to know when Varo has reached out.
Logical Entry Points
Initial proposed entry points included:
Chat badging on the My Varo bottom navigation, guiding the customer to the “Chat with us” deep link in Help and support
A persistent header entry point
A floating action button near the bottom navigation
Wireframe Explorations
As I ideated initial wireframes, I asked myself “What would be a really effortless way for customers to get to chat? How could they easily get back to an open chat? How could they get back to see previous chats they’ve had? What can we realistically release for an MVP that can ensure we get to our north star state?”
