Chase app communication settings

Overview

The Chase app offers over 20 products and services to support customers in managing their financial well-being, including account management, credit cards, and self-directed investments. However, the app's communication with customers is not personalized, and customers face difficulties in managing their communication preferences. As a result, many customers receive more email notifications than they anticipated. With the Chase app rebranding initiative that began in late 2019, the app's communication team recognized this as a great opportunity to enhance the overall communication experience within the Chase app ecosystem.

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‍What I did

• Partnered with the product owner to define the core user experience and establish a Key Experience Indicators (KEI) framework for the design scope of work.
• Worked with various design stakeholders across different products and services to gather design requirements and outline the roadmap for the core app.
• Translated PM vision to leadership, building the case for infrastructure investment.
• Led UX/UI efforts from ideation to development.

My impact

• Streamlined all communication channels for consumer-based experiences within the first month of the pilot rollout.
• Aligned the 2022 design vision with other platform design teams, ensuring a unified design approach for app communication.

The Challenge

When customers are using their Chase app, they are notified about their account activities—whether it's opening a new account, verifying their identities, or catching possible fraudulent actions. However, many of them have felt bombarded by too many notifications from the Chase app or website. And only 2% of users were able to opt out from these notifications from their preference page. Here’s what we found from the validation research with our users:

1. Not sure where to check the communication settings on both web and mobile
2. Takes too long to navigate to the communication settings page
3. Feels like the communication settings page has way too much information, it can be overwhelmed
4. Want to feel a sense of control

My Approach

To address the issues identified in our validation research and empower customers to take control of their communication preferences, I worked closely with both the product owner and our research team to identify the shared success criteria to define the KEI framework, then aligned with other product teams as we were building consensus on patterns that could flex across different context in other product features. I also help product owner to articulate design value to leadership, building cases for broader infrastructure investment.

As results, I thought of creating an experience that empowers customers to enroll in various communication settings and manage their notification preferences autonomously. This approach will enable users to take control of their communication experience, leading to higher user satisfaction and engagement.

The Design Shift

Our vision revolves around crafting an intuitive bundling system, providing a spectrum of configuration options for both new and existing customers. The core value proposition would stop making customers hunt for settings after they're frustrated. Instead, meet them at account creation with a proactive onboarding experience.

The new flow offered three paths: "Stick with the essentials", "Tell me more", or "I want it all". This framing shifted from "managing 47 toggles" to "choose your own experience".

Below, we outline the key scenarios we tackled when managing communication settings:

Scenario 1: Simple set up

Scenario 2: Too many alerts

We communicated the scenarios above to senior leadership and they were pleased with the proposals we recommended. Ultimately, we successfully integrated these ideas into our 2022 target vision, in conjunction with the Chase app's rebranding initiative, as part of our collaboration with the Channel Design Team.

To effectively communicate these design strategies, we translated them into Key Experience Indicators (KEI) that serve as benchmarks aligning design requirements with our business objectives:

• Providing users with a heightened sense of personalized and scalable control.
• Delivering relevant information simply and intuitively.
• Empowering users to make motivating and encouraging decisions.

This approach ensures that our design not only meets user needs but also contributes to our overarching business goals.

What We Shipped

With the constraints of limited budgets and our tech stack in May 2021, the full native experience required 18+ months. Rather than wait, we shipped an MVP that focuses on web first, then retain the same design in the mobile web browser view. In collaboration with the Channel Design Team, I worked on specifying the actual designs that could be addressed in the first half of the year.

‍Below are sample screens that were part of the MVP delivered in the first half of 2021:

Below is the alerts management page in mobile browser view, also available in the app view.

This approach allows us to make significant strides in improving the user experience within the limitations of our resources and technology, ultimately working towards our long-term vision.

Impact and conclusion

After the MVP release in the first half of 2021, we've seen a 3-5% rise in users actively managing notifications. This led into a 15% reduction in notification-related customer complaints. The KEI framework and design patterns we established became the foundation for Chase's 2022 unified communication vision across platform teams. We are optimistic that these results will continue to drive positive change and enhance the overall user experience for our valued customers.