The transformation of Banco Montepio Bank’s digital channels
ABOUT THIS SUCCESS STORY
Banco Montepio was undergoing a transformation of its digital channels.
The goal was to create and renew the 360º customer journey across all points of contact, ensuring consistency and fostering an emotional connection between users and these channels.
SCOPE OF THIS SOLUTION
- User Experience
- Design Thinking
- Digital Experiences
Challenge: the renewal of digital channels
Banco Montepio is a historic Portuguese institution, a symbol of trust and closeness with its customers. With the growing demand for digital channels, and the need to continue to stay close to its customers, the bank is renewing its various interaction and communication platforms.
The challenge the bank posed to Xpand IT was the creation and renewal of all of its 360 customer contact points, ensuring consistency between them and promoting the emotional connection between its users and these digital channels.
Value proposition
Arriving at a value proposal for each challenge.
Internal processes
Cross-flow journeys to simplify internal processes.
Competitors analysis
Integration and prioritization of solutions in the face of direct, indirect and intersecting competitive forces.
Solution: design thinking methodology – from concept to implementation
The Xpand IT team used internal design thinking methodology to come up with a solution. This methodology seeks to promote innovation and create relevant competitive advantages. The 3 pillars of design thinking methodology are Understand, Explore and Materialize – 3 steps accomplished by a close partnership between Xpand IT and Montepio throughout the whole process.
This partnership translated into:
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Workshops that allowed managing expectations and arriving at a value proposal for each challenge;
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Cross-flow journeys to simplify the acquisition of new customers and the automation of internal processes;
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Discovering and creating opportunities with younger audiences;
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Customization and adaptation of content for its customers
Each phase of this methodology has a purpose: to get to know Banco Montepio and its operating procedures better; map the process and identify any inefficiencies that might exist; and generate ideas, accompanied by solutions. This roadmap helped Xpand IT to reach the ideal working model.
Step 1 – Understand (empathize & define)
Empathize: One of the most important phases is the project start-up, where all the information needed for the following steps is gathered. It is at this stage that the Xpand IT UX team empathized not only with the project users, but above all with the client, to understand and outline the way forward. This phase provided answers and opportunities based on observation and brainstorming between all parties.
Define: In this phase of the project, the teams focused on the functional analysis of the solution to the identified challenge, which started with observation and research from the previous phase, considering all the nuances and inputs that are added value at this point – this will be the lever for the following phases.
Step 2 – Explore (ideation & prototyping)
Ideation: This is an iterative phase, which can be used throughout the project and does not have to be attached to any stage. When ideating, the team generates, experiments and contrasts ideas that make it possible to explore innovative paths, adding value to the proposed solution.
We used tools such as ideation workshops (tailored to the project), internal brainstorming in a “Golden Circle – How, What, Why and to Whom” format, schematization and the construction of live mock-ups with the client.
Prototyping: Depending on the complexity of the stage of the journey, the prototype follows the same intent – to be at the centre of the iteration process, visually accompanied by ideas, refinement and time invested in experimentation until a result is reached – leading from a low-fi macro prototype to a hi-fi micro one, reducing the intended time-to-market for Banco Montepio.
Step 3 – Materialize (testing & implementation)
Testing: User feedback is critical to be able to achieve the best possible solution – Moderate and Non-Moderate Usability Tests were performed with Banco Montepio, which Xpand IT’s UX team analyzed and interpreted. The adoption of such tests made the chosen path clear for the solutions worked out and made it easier to make informed decisions. The tests turned the result into an important value proposition.
Implementation: During the implementation phase of the solution, a context debrief and knowledge transfer was facilitated by inter-team sessions through the documentation of all the previous steps, and validated by the bank at the close of each sprint.
To ensure that experience and technology would run side by side in production, UX Quality Assurance was implemented along with Development QA.
This partnership ensured greater comfort and trust between Xpand IT and Banco Montepio by ensuring an excellent deliverable.
Benefits: personalized and tailored channels to users’ needs
Humanized, personalized experience
Prioritizing omnichannel seamlessly.
Conversational context
To facilitate interactions.
Clarity of information
For more transparent communication with the customer.
Customer-centricity
As a supply focus.
Translation of terms
Into the client’s language.
Paradigm shift
In customer/user behaviour.
"The continuous evolution of our interaction platforms and our journey is a critical process for continuing to provide the best response to increasingly sophisticated and demanding customers, and to create an increasingly effective and efficient bank. We believe that our partnership with Xpand IT and its methodology and experience is the right formula to achieve this ambition."
Francisco Pessanha
Head of Customer Experience and Touchpoints, Montepio
About Montepio Bank
Founded in 1844 in Portugal
+1.3 million customers
Values
- Customer proximity
- Trust
- Transparency
Project frameworks
- Ideation workshops
- Strategy before execution
- Structured documentation
- Design System
- Agile methodology
Read more
We believe in partnerships that deliver results
This success story shows what’s possible when collaboration happens. Shall we talk?