Helping Cowrywise convert and retain new customers.

Personal Finance . Wealth Management

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Cowrywise logo

MY ROLES

UX Research, UI Design,
Prototyping.

PROJECT SPONSORS

Spotify Team.

THE CHALLENGE

Cowrywise has raised $3.3 Millioin since inception but trails behind Piggyvest  (it’s main competition) in market share. Help Cowrywise acquire and retain new customers.

THE SOLUTION

Assured customers of Cowrywise's credibility and helped them to stay committed to their financial goals through an experience that breaks down their goals into achievable bits.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

  • 4 moderated user interviews
  • 8 Usability study sessions
  • 4 reviews and crit sessions (1 with Robinhood team)

IMPACT

  • 75% increase in user conversion.
  • 100% increase in user eduction and product ownership.

Process Overview

In mid July 2021, I and my colleagues at Kimoyo Fellowship were tasked with discovering the business goal of Cowrywise (a popular Fintech product/company in Nigeria), and finding out specific problems that people faced while using the product. This discovery would then be used to come up with a solution that meets both user and business needs.

Competition Analysis

To kick off this project I considered researching the problem that Cowrywise intended to solve in the first place and then analysed how well the existing solutions solved this problem for users. To achieve this, I conducted an audit of the existing product and carried out competition research. From my research I was able to gather that:

Cowrywise wants to improve the poor saving and investing culture in Nigeria.

This is as a result of

  • high unemployment rate
  • weak purchasing power and
  • inadequate knowledge of investment products

An analysis of the competition also showed that PiggyVest is Cowrywise's major competition with over a million Playstore downloads while Cowrywise and Risevest both have over 100,000 downloads each.

This indicated that Cowrywise has some catching up to do in terms of customer acquisition and retainment.

Competition Analysis

Piggyvest image

PIGGYVEST

Over 1M+ Playstore downloads.

$50k capital raised in over 2 rounds.

Cowrywise logo

COWRYWISE

Over 100k+ Playstore downloads.

$3.3M capital raised in over 6 rounds of funding.

Risevest logo

RISEVEST

Over 100k+ Playstore downloads.

$120k capital raised in 3 rounds of funding.

The Business Objective

"To acquire more customers and to convert first time users to frequent users."

Some User Comments.

“I can’t rely on Access Bank’s target savings because I will be prompted to withdraw from it before it matures”.
“I have been exploring several online platforms but I’m a bit scared to put my money into them because of eventualities”.

Understanding the users

After understanding the business landscape, I moderated four participant interviews to have a sense of their saving and investing habits. I then sorted out my research findings into user themes and established a user persona to ensure that my research is grounded in actual needs and not assumptioins.

Key Insights

My interview findings showed that:

  • Many participants use their mobile banks for savings but they felt it wasn't doing enough to help them save habitually.
  • Most of them are afraid of losing their hard earned money because they had fallen victim of online fraud before.
  • Some participants had multiple platforms/products for Saving and investing their money.
  • They were all open to trying out a new platform or product that guides and helps them nurture a healthy saving habit.

User needs

  • A secure platform for saving and investing.
  • A platform that combines saving and investing.
  • More attractive returns on their investments.
  • They Want to develop financial discipline.

Goals

  • Promote a sense of safety and security to users.
  • Support user discipline
  • Educate users about savings and investments.
  • Ensure the sign-up flow is as short as possible
  • Encourage users to start a plan.

Opportunity

“How might I educate and assure first time users of Cowrywise’s credibility such that they become loyal customers?”.

Exploration and Testing

To solve this challenge, I sketched multiple concepts, however, two of them stood out. These were based on social proofing and habit-forming. Each of these options emphasized the benefits of Cowrywise through its onboarding and user conversion flow.

#Concept 01 - Building habits

  • Builds upon what users envision for themselves.
  • Makes users intentional about improving their finances.
  • Supports saving habit by breaking down goals into achievable bits.
First image of habit building flow
Second image of habit building flow
Third image of habit building flow
Fourth image of habit building flow

#Concept 02 - Social proofing

  • Builds existing trust and recommendation from friends.
  • Supports saving habits through accountability partners.
First image of Social proofing flow
Second image of Social proofing flow
Third image of Social proofing flow
Fourth image of habit building flow

Usability testing

I conducted 8 usability tests on the wireframe to identify usability issues and improvement opportunities before taking it to high-fidelity. The insights I got helped me to refine my design concept before presenting to Robinhood team.

User call outs

“Input a debit card CTA is not as bold as send request CTA, I completely missed it”

Joshua, Graphics Designer.

“Onboarding copy captures only investments. It does not include savings which is contrary to my expectation”.

Maryam, Undergraduate.

Social-proofing image1
Social-proofing image4

Set your savings goal.

Social-proofing image3

Notify your partner.

Solution - Habit forming flow.

  • Images are relatable, convey trust and grab attention.
  • Single onboarding page reduces the sign-up time.
  • Onboarding copy summarises the apps offering.
  • Iteration maintains the brand colour sticking with what users are already familiar with.
  • Asking users about their most desired goal makes them think about what they want to achieve.
  • Breaking down the goal makes it realizable and gives user the confidence that they can achieve it.

Reflections & Next Steps

This project was an interesting one for me because it allowed me to think and make decisions not only from the perspective of the users but also from that of the business. Some of the key take-aways from the froject are:

  • Security and safety is first to mind when dealing with peoples finances
  • Design can be made to influence user action, even at their expense.
  • Some research is better than none, but research can be done wrong.

Next Steps

My next steps would be to test the design solution to find out if users subscribe to a plan or not. The outcome of the test would then determine whether or not I would Iterate upon the design solution.

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PiggyVest image
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