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Background | Business Objective | 4-Satge Sprint | Business Impact | Industry Impact
Part 1: Background
Traditionally, many banks rely on high-interest promotional offers to attract new customers. This strategy often targets “reward-seekers”—customers motivated purely by short-term financial incentives. While effective at acquiring new accounts, this approach creates significant challenges for long-term business sustainability. Once the promotional deposit period ends, as many as 95% of these customers withdraw their deposits, leading to high customer churn and volatile fluctuations in deposit volumes.
The CEO of the Hong Kong region of one of Asia’s largest banks recognized the risks of this approach. He argued that over-reliance on reward-seekers would lead to unsustainable customer acquisition costs, low engagement levels, and instability in the bank’s deposit base. The CEO emphasized the need for a transformative solution to attract and retain high-value customers for the long term.
Part 2: Business Objectives
Faced with these challenges, the management team of the bank and the InnoEdge consultant team set an ambitious goal: to shift its focus from short-term promotions to delivering meaningful, high-value customer experiences that encourage long-term loyalty. To address this, the CEO initiated a 4-Stage Design Sprint, tasking the team with the following challenge statement:
“How can we create a memorable experience to retain valued customers?”
- The project aimed to:
- Improve Customer Retention Rates: Reduce the number of high-value customers withdrawing their deposits after the promotional period.
- Stabilize and Increase Deposit Volumes: Retain funds from high-value customers to improve the bank’s overall financial stability.
- The sprint was led by the Head of Customer Experience and included a multidisciplinary team of experts from across the organization:
- Customer Management Department: Relationship managers and marketing managers contributed insights into customer behavior and preferences.
- Operations and Product Development Teams: Bank operations managers and product developers ensured the proposed solutions were feasible and scalable within the bank’s existing infrastructure.
Part 3: 4-Satge Sprint
- Day 1 (or Phase 1): User Needs Identification & Concept Development [Details]
- Day 2 (or Phase 2): Concept Validation [Details]
- Day 3 (or Phase 3): Implementation Validation [Details]
- Day 4 (or Phase 4): Engagement Validation [Details]
Day 1 (or Phase 1): User Needs Identification and Innovative Concept Development
- Stage of Iterative 4D Model: Discover, Define and Develop Stages
Module 1.1: User Needs Identification
- Techniques and Tools:
- Customer Complaint and Compliment Analysis
- Empathy Interviews and Mapping
- Customer Immersions
- On-site Observations
- Scope of Work:
- The innovation team utilized Customer Complaint and Compliment Analysis to examine feedback and identify recurring issues and areas of satisfaction among high-value customers.
- They conducted Empathy Interviews and Mapping to gain deeper insights into customers’ emotions, motivations, and challenges, enabling a better understanding of their unmet and hidden needs.
- Through Customer Immersions, the team engaged directly with customers to experience their banking journey from their perspective, uncovering pain points and opportunities for improvement.
- Finally, On-Site Observations were conducted to analyze customer interactions with bank services in real-world settings, capturing behaviors and contextual issues often missed in traditional research.
- Outcome:
- The research identified ten disengagement scenarios, with two critical factors influencing customer retention:
- Insufficient or slow responses to urgent, unexpected wealth management issues.
- Uncongenial communication through face-to-face interactions, customer service hotlines, or electronic messaging.
- These findings provided actionable insights to address the most pressing customer pain points and improve retention strategies.
- The research identified ten disengagement scenarios, with two critical factors influencing customer retention:
Module 1.2: Innovative Concept Development
- Techniques and Tools:
- Persona Map
- Customer Journey Mapping
- Different Ideation Methods
- Idea Prirortiation Matrix
- Scope of Work:
- The innovation team, comprising key staff from various departments, utilized Persona Maps to gain a deep understanding of customer profiles and needs.
- They applied Customer Journey Mapping to identify pain points and critical touchpoints in the customer experience.
- Leveraging Different Ideation Methods, the team conducted multiple ideation and iteration sessions, generating hundreds of potential solutions.
- Using the Idea Prioritization Matrix to screen and prioritize solutions, focusing resources on developing the most promising innovative concepts.
- Outcome:
- The team developed innovative solutions to address pain points and improve customer experiences, including:
- Advanced real-time support for selected customers through mobile apps.
- Customized communication for relationship managers, service hotlines, and electronic promotions, designed to adapt to four unique communication styles.
- The team developed innovative solutions to address pain points and improve customer experiences, including:
Day 2 (or Phase 2): Concept Validation
- Stage of Iterative 4D Model: Deliver Stage – Functional Prototyping
Module 2.1: Developing Strategies with Prototypes for Concept Validation
- Techniques and Tools:
- Paper Prototype
- Scenario Map (or Experience Map)
- Pinocchio Experiment
- Boomerang
- Scope of Work:
- The team utilized Paper Prototypes to visualize and test different interface layouts for the mobile app, focusing on the placement of buttons to address urgent and unexpected wealth management issues, such as the investment function.
- Through the Pinocchio Experiment, they simulated clients’ daily use of the current mobile app to gather feedback on the “Help” or “Support” button arrangements.
- Using the Boomerang technique, they obtained client feedback on competitor apps to identify best practices and potential improvements.
- Additionally, the team developed Scenario Maps (or Experience Maps) to design and refine over 30 service flows for customer support, focusing on addressing unexpected wealth management issues across both mobile and website platforms.
- Outcome:
- Based on client feedback and competitor analysis, over 30 paper prototypes of mobile app interfaces with various “Help” or “Support” button arrangements were produced.
- Over 20 service flows were developed to optimize customer support for urgent wealth management issues, ensuring seamless experiences on both mobile apps and websites.
Module 2.2: Conducting User Testings and Analyzing User Feedback
- Techniques and Tools:
- Feedback Capture Grid
- I Like, I Wish, & What If
- Visualize the Vote
- Scope of Work:
- The team presented the paper prototypes to clients during user testing sessions to gather feedback through the Feedback Capture Grid, categorizing insights into strengths, issues, questions, and ideas for improvement.
- At the final round of testing, the team utilized I Like, I Wish, & What If to encourage clients to share specific preferences, desired changes, and creative suggestions. In parallel, the Visualize the Vote technique was used to help clients prioritize the features that best addressed their needs.
- Additionally, the team presented the proposed customer support workflow to representatives from internal departments, including branch operations, to ensure alignment and gather feedback for further refinement.
- Outcome:
- The concept of special client support call workflow for embedding the special support contact number into clients’ mobile phones during the account opening process at branches was finalized and confirmed by both clients and branch operations representatives.
- Clients identified and prioritized major features that effectively addressed their needs, providing clear direction for feature implementation in the mobile app.
- Internal feedback from department representatives ensured the workflow was practical, scalable, and aligned with operational procedures.
Day 3 (or Phase 3): Implementation Validation
- Stage of Iterative 4D Model: Deliver Stage – Interactional prototyping
Module 3.1: Developing Strategies with Prototypes for Implementation Validation
- Techniques and Tools:
- Role Play
- Reverse Role Play
- Service Staging
- Scope of Work:
- The team designed a comprehensive testing flow for the special client support call process by leveraging multiple prototyping tools.
- Using Role-Play, they developed scenarios in which staff would simulate real-world interactions to test their ability to resolve technical issues. These scenarios were tailored to cover diverse client needs and challenges.
- Through Reverse Role Play, the team incorporated reverse thinking to anticipate potential staff pain points and workflow inefficiencies, ensuring the testing flow addressed these challenges.
- Finally, with Service Staging, the team outlined a detailed end-to-end process for validating each touchpoint of the support call service, from client interaction to issue resolution, ensuring readiness for implementation testing.
- Outcome:
- A structured testing flow was designed to simulate staff-client interactions, focusing on effectively resolving technical issues.
- The testing flow included diverse scenarios to evaluate staff performance, workflow efficiency, and the overall service experience.
- Detailed service staging plans were developed to validate the entire customer journey during implementation testing, ensuring all touchpoints were covered.
Module 3.2: Conducting User Testings and Analyzing User Feedback
- Techniques and Tools:
- Feedback Capture Grid
- I Like, I Wish, & What If
- Visualize the Vote
- Observation
- Scope of Work:
- The team conducted user testing to evaluate the prototype of the special client support call workflow. Through Observation, they monitored staff interactions with the prototype, identifying difficulties staff faced in handling technical client issues.
- Feedback was gathered using the Feedback Capture Grid, categorizing insights into strengths, weaknesses, questions, and areas for improvement. Staff performance challenges, such as insufficient technical knowledge, were highlighted.
- The team facilitated I Like, I Wish, & What If sessions to encourage participants to express what worked well, what they wished to improve, and potential solutions to enhance the workflow.
- Finally, Visualize the Vote was used to help staff and stakeholders prioritize the most critical improvements, focusing on boosting staff capabilities and refining the workflow for implementation.
- Outcome:
- It was determined that staff lacked sufficient technical knowledge to assist clients effectively during special support calls.
- To address this, the team proposed developing a guidebook covering workflows, troubleshooting steps, and technical issue resolution.
- A specialized training program was recommended to enhance staff skills and prepare them for effectively managing special client support calls.
Day 4 (or Phase 4): Engagement Validation
- Stage of Iterative 4D Model: Deliver Stage – Call-to-Action Prototyping
Module 4.1: Developing Strategies with Prototypes for Engagement Validation
- Techniques and Tools:
- Mock Pop-Up Service Point
- Scope of Work:
- The team designed and tested all arrangements for the special client support call workflow by setting up a Mock Pop-Up Service Point at a selected branch. This temporary service point simulated the workflow under real-world conditions to validate its feasibility and usability. The arrangements included:
- Staff Preparation: Trained branch staff on the workflow, including how to embed the special support contact number into client mobile phones and explain its purpose and benefits.
- Testing Environment Setup: Designed the testing environment to mimic the branch setup for realistic testing conditions.
- Client Interaction Process: Developed communication scripts and materials for staff to engage with clients, ensuring they understood the workflow and its benefits.
- The team designed and tested all arrangements for the special client support call workflow by setting up a Mock Pop-Up Service Point at a selected branch. This temporary service point simulated the workflow under real-world conditions to validate its feasibility and usability. The arrangements included:
- Outcome:
- A complete and validated workflow for embedding the special support contact number into clients’ mobile phones during the account opening process was finalized.
- Feedback from the mock setup helped identify areas for further refinement to ensure clarity and efficiency.
- Staff gained hands-on experience with the workflow, preparing them for broader implementation.
Module 4.2: Conducting User Testings and Recommnading Project Next Step
- Techniques and Tools:
- Feedback Capture Grid
- Observation
- Lean Canvas
- Scope of Work:
- The team conducted observation by closely monitoring staff interactions with clients during the workflow execution at the branch. They noted any communication challenges, technical issues, or process inefficiencies, which provided valuable insights into the workflow’s real-world application.
- Using the Feedback Capture Grid, feedback was collected from both clients and staff. This feedback was categorized into strengths, weaknesses, open questions, and areas for improvement, helping the team clearly understand which aspects of the workflow were effective and which needed refinement.
- Following this, the Lean Canvas framework was utilized to document the insights gained during the testing phase. The Lean Canvas highlighted the problem, proposed solution, key metrics, and customer feedback, helping the team evaluate the overall value proposition and identify critical areas needing refinement for the project’s broader scalability.
- Outcome:
- Client Feedback: The majority of clients were satisfied with the number installation process, agreeing it was simple and effective.
- Next Steps:
- Finalized a Lean Canvas to document key findings and recommendations for broader project implementation.
- A rollout plan was developed, including additional training for staff and the refinement of communication materials.
- Plans for scaling the workflow across all branches were outlined, ensuring consistency and readiness.
Part 4: Business Impact
After just three months of intensive development, the bank launched the first version of its new mobile application. This app, combined with upgraded staff skills and enhanced communication methods, marked the beginning of a truly customer-centric transformation. The first iteration of the app focused on addressing the most significant customer pain points, ensuring ease of use and seamless access to support services.
The project didn’t stop there. Through continuous iterations and improvements, the solution evolved into a comprehensive platform that provided not only technical assistance but also personalized investment advice—delivering a truly memorable and value-driven customer experience. By the time the final solution was fully implemented, the results were remarkable:
- Customer retention rates surged to double digits, a significant improvement that far exceeded initial expectations.
- The bank successfully retained over HK$3 billion in fixed deposit, investment and insurance services.
This groundbreaking initiative demonstrated how a cutting-edge Design Sprint execution model of Design Thinking method could be leveraged to deliver measurable business impact. The project not only transformed the bank’s approach to customer retention but also set a new benchmark for innovation in the Hong Kong banking sector.
Through a focus on user-centric design, continuous improvement, and cross-departmental collaboration, the bank achieved sustainable growth and built a foundation of loyalty and trust among its most valued customers. This success story serves as a powerful reminder of the potential for Design Sprints to drive substantial ROI and long-term business success in even the most competitive industries.
Part 5: Recognition and Industry Impact
The success of this transformative project not only delivered measurable business results but also garnered significant recognition within the Hong Kong banking sector. The Business Discipline of the Vocational Training Council (VTC), under the Hong Kong SAR Government, identified the case as a pioneering example of innovation and design thinking in action.
As a result, the project was featured in the Design Thinking Case Book 2020 (please click here for details), published by the VTC. This prestigious recognition highlights the project’s practicality, scalability, and impact, solidifying its position as a benchmark for innovation in the banking industry.
The inclusion of this case in the Design Thinking Case Book underscores its importance as a learning tool for the next generation of banking and business professionals. It serves as a valuable resource for illustrating how customer-centric approaches, cross-departmental collaboration, and continuous innovation can drive exceptional business outcomes, even in one of the world’s most competitive financial hubs.
This acknowledgment from the Hong Kong SAR Government reflects the project’s far-reaching influence and reinforces its role as a game-changer for the Hong Kong banking sector. It stands as a testament to how cutting-edge design sprints can redefine industry standards and create lasting business impact.
Beyond the success of this groundbreaking banking project, our Design Thinking Practices have been recognized for delivering impactful solutions across other major sectors in Hong Kong. We were invited to share four additional successful cases in industries such as aviation, insurance, public transport, and community development, showcasing how this methodology drives innovation, solves complex challenges, and creates measurable value across diverse fields. This recognition highlights the versatility and transformational power of Design Sprints in shaping the future of Hong Kong’s key industries.
