CAPITAL ONE
Project Artifacts, Wireframes, Mockups, and Prototypes are restricted under NDA.
Problem:
Capital One is experiencing revenue losses due to agents jumping between too many old systems and dealing with manual agent workflows within its legacy collections processes.
Goal:
Capital One needs to improve its collection agent caseload. Capital One’s agents need collections management software with more automated features to streamline their casework, increase their caseload, and increase opportunities for their customers to pay off their debts.
Capital One’s goal was to design a trailblazer collections MVP to lead the migration from their legacy collections agent software to their consolidated agent software. The consolidated software was already in use by agents in other departments at Capital One. I would need to improve upon the legacy functionality while minimizing the tech lift for the MVP.
Timeframe:
The project timeline was 12 months. Within the timeframe, I conducted the following activities:
UX Research
Analysis of Capital One Design Standards
Contextual Inquiry
Agent Journey Mapping
Stakeholder Interviews
Wireframes and High Fidelity Mockups
Customer Authentication Modals
Customer Account Landing Page
Prototype
Customer Authentication Workflow
Make a Payment Workflow
Edit Customer Account Workflow
Reviews
Design review with a panel of design leads
Legal review with a panel of legal stakeholders
Team
I had originally been assigned to the project as an associate designer, working under a design lead. However, members of our design team left in the first month of the project. My design lead was spread thin to pick up the extra design workload, and I was left to spearhead the project on my own. Along with my design lead, I worked closely with a team of product and tech partners. We met in weekly sprint meetings to go over my design progress, demo wireframes, and prototypes, and collaborate on features for the MVP.
UX Research
I spent the first couple weeks at Capital One acquainting myself with Capital One’s existing agent software as well as the Capital One design system. I ensured I had a clear understanding of Capital One’s software limitations as well as its design standards.
I also met regularly with a group of Capital One collections agents that worked within the legacy software. Over the course of weekly side-by-side observations, I mapped out the current customer servicing journey using the legacy software.
In order to ensure I improved upon the current legacy software and utilized existing features in the destination software, I interviewed collections agents using the legacy software and agents using the destination software. I gathered the agents' pain points with the legacy software workflow, destination software features that could enhance agent workflow in the MVP, and features nonexistent in either software that could streamline future agent workflows. I compiled and visualized the improved features and workflow in a new agent journey map for the MVP.
Wireframes
Using my agent journey map and my agent interviews as sources of truth, I created my first iteration of digital wireframes. I focused on a customer account landing page as well as a payment screen for the MVP. In the preliminary meetings with my product and tech partners, I learned that we needed to simplify the features of the MVP to minimize tech debt. We decided to gradually migrate the agent experience from the legacy software to the consolidated agent software, a few features at a time.
In my agent research, I discovered that the most important and most common responsibility for collections agents was to process customers’ collections payments and update customer information. The only pages required to process customer payments and edit customer information were the customer account landing page and the payments screen.
My UX research uncovered that the primary feature I would be utilizing in my MVP would be repurposing the IVR (integrated voice recognition software) that was built into the consolidated agent software (the destination software for my MVP).
The IVR would allow customers to enter their personal information, i.e. SSN, account number, and date of birth, to pre-verify their identities before being connected to an agent. There was no IVR integration in the legacy software, meaning that agents would take time to manually search for customer information and validate customer identities before proceeding with servicing.
In my agent research, I discovered that one of the most important parts of the agent’s call workflow is reading an account-specific disclaimer to the customer at the top of the call. The disclaimer protects Capital One and the from legal risk. The current disclaimer flow involved the agent finding the customer’s account characteristic(s) on their landing page in the current software, opening a bookmarked disclaimer library webpage, searching for the account characteristic on the webpage, and reading the corresponding disclaimer to the customer.
I planned to incorporate the destination software’s automated disclaimer functionality to determine the correct customer-specific disclaimer based on the customer data and display it for the agent to read once they opened the customer landing page. As one can imagine, the existing disclaimer workflow had a large margin for human error, and utilizing the automated disclaimer feature in my MVP would save agents a fair amount of time.
Finally, I iterated on the existing payments screen in the consolidated software to create the wireframe for the collections MVP. There were different payment options and payment plans for collections than what currently existed, so I created new cards using the design system for the collections data. The new software displays all information in a card pattern, so I followed the design system as I added cards to the landing page and payments screen.
Minimizing Tech Debt
Throughout my wireframing process, I conducted weekly sprint meetings with my product and tech partners to ensure my work aligned with Capital One business goals and tech constraints.
My product partners and I agreed that we should utilize existing features in the destination software, like IVR, automated account disclaimers, and payment functionality, for the collections migration.
However, upon further review, my tech partners discovered that it would not be possible to incorporate all of these features into the MVP within the allotted time for the project. We would only have time to create one prioritized feature. After conferring with my partners and meeting again with a panel of collections agents, we agreed to focus on the IVR integration for the MVP.
Finalizing Features
Knowing that we’d be dropping the automated disclaimer and payment features for the MVP, I had to design a solution that would allow agents to use the MVP to verify customers, read the appropriate disclaimers at the top of each call, and use the legacy software to service customers.
I followed the existing IVR verification process to create the mockups for the MVP. Using the destination software’s design system, I created a disclaimer link at the top of the MVP customer landing page as well as a payments button in the MVP’s navigation bar. The disclaimer link opened the legacy software’s disclaimer library as a pop-up so that agents could locate and read the account-specific disclaimer quickly. The payments button linked back to the legacy software’s customer payment screen so that agents could service customers with no added tech lift.
Final Review
I presented my final mockups and prototype to my product and tech partners. They agreed that the addition of the IVR would bring value and efficiency to the MVP, while the disclaimer link and payments button would allow agents to complete their servicing workflows without any additional tech lift.
With my team’s approval, I brought my mockups and prototype before a panel of design leads and legal representatives for a final design review. The panel had me cite my UX research to ensure my designs were data-driven. They also had me walk through each screen in my prototype to ensure that the UI met design standards and that the proposed workflow didn’t expose Capital One to any legal risks. They found no issues in the final deliverables and approved my designs for handoff to tech for development.
Unfortunately, I, as well as the rest of the design contractors, was laid off before I was able to witness my work as a final MVP.
Takeaways
Don’t be afraid to take initiative.
I was working at Capital One during a transitionary time. Many were spread thin and I wasn’t given much oversight or training for my role. I took it upon myself to do my own research, take my work to design office hours, and meet with my tech and product partners for feedback. I knew my resourcefulness paid off in my one-on-ones with my design lead when he told me he was impressed with how I had taken the lead on my project and how my product and tech partners had reached out to him to praise my work.
“Measure twice, cut once.”
The many feedback sessions with agents and my business partners vetted my design strategy. I accounted for as much agent and partner insight as possible in my wireframing process and needed to iterate less when it came time to create my mockups and prototype.