As someone born in the millennial generation, I have only a vague memory of what life was like prior to the Internet boom. I recall the first time I made an online purchase and the wave of skepticism that came from my parents. “You need our…what? Our credit card information? You can’t put that on the Internet!” Nowadays, we save our credit card information quite easily in our browser — and don’t really think twice about it.
Now that I’m in my 20s and have built a career as an experience designer in the financial space, I’ve noticed the enormous impact technology has made on consumer behaviors, which in turn affects the way businesses operate. Gone are the days when a company can thrive solely on selling great products. Younger audiences expect more value and better experiences. How can businesses better cater to the millennial generation — and the ones that follow?
Here’s how some of the most successful companies in the financial services industry have succeeded in targeting their business to younger generations.
1. Integrating design with automation and personalization
Who does this well?
Betterment
Who are they?
Betterment has a simple mission: to make the most of your money. Through their technology, they’ve found a way to make long-term investing simple and easy to understand.
Why are they successful?
As an individual who has never met with a financial advisor (nor wanted to pay for one) and has never really understood the term “saving money,” Betterment is a practical way for me to create a sound and safe future for myself. The app helps me easily understand my financial situation and gives me detailed steps on how to hit my goals through automation and personalization.
By understanding who I am as a user, Betterment creates a personalized plan that works toward my goals and my ability to save. By using automated tools, Betterment’s app allows me to set up, contribute, and check my finances any time I want, with zero meetings and zero face-to-face conversations with a real-life human being. (Yes, that’s something that matters to me.) Fellow experience designer Stephen Hathaway, also a millennial, notes that Betterment makes it easy to consolidate and roll over multiple 401K funds into a single platform. Overall, Betterment works behind the scenes to make the most out of their users’ money — which leads me to my next point.
2. Put in the work behind the scenes
Who does this well?
Acorns
Who are they?
Acorns is an investing application that invests life’s change, one purchase at a time.
Why are they a success?
Acorns provides a behind-the-scenes service to take the work out of something that’s hard for most people: saving money. By rounding up your purchases to the nearest dollar, they create a savings plan that any individual can follow. (Remember, I’m a millennial who doesn’t know how to save money, nor has time to create a savings plan.) Acorns kills two birds with one stone. Though it’s not a revolutionary idea — we’ve had jars for spare change and swear words for as long as I can remember — the remarkable aspect is that their app operates entirely hands-off, from a user perspective.
3.Understand what service you want to provide and do that one service really, really well.
Who does this well?
Robinhood
Who are they?
Robinhood lets you learn to invest in the stock market for free.
Why are they a success?
Robinhood has focused on one aspect of Wall Street and provided a service that is really, really good: stock trading.
Through a very simple and intuitive user interface, Robinhood has done the unthinkable — get a millennial excited and interested in day-to-day stock trading. Every morning I find myself checking my phone, throwing it against the wall when I see that MOMO has tanked, and then buying a new phone when I realized that MOMO has skyrocketed (yes, this is an exaggeration).
Stephen says, “Robinhood does an incredible job providing tips throughout the experience, slowly teaching you how to become a better investor. One of their insights was around Mutual Funds and how they perform over a long term. Although Mutual Funds don’t typically get traded on day to day basis, I enjoy that Robinhood provided bite-size information on a type of stock I had little knowledge about. It allowed me to have more capital to buy into specific companies I believe in, something that a financial advisor may not take into account when managing my portfolio.”
There’s more to saving money than just stock trading — there’s a whole world devoted to it. But Robinhood hasn’t tried to tackle any of that. They’ve focused on one thing, and implemented it very well.
They’ve done so without turning it into another “social media” application — which is my fourth point.
4. Don’t create another social media application.
Who does this well?
The Cash App
Who are they?
The Cash App is a no-nonsense cash trading application.
Why are they a success?
The Cash App provides a service that has made life one million times easier (roughly), and they’ve done so with a streamlined application that doesn’t even try the slightest to create it into a social platform.
I already waste enough of my life scrolling through endless news feeds. I certainly don’t need another! My dog walker uses one of the other cash paying applications. After I pay her through the other application to walk my dog, Flapjacks, I find myself scrolling endlessly through a never-ending newsfeed of payments. Darn, the internet wins my time over again. The Cash App’s no-nonsense design approach makes me feel less guilty and just gets the job done.
Ogilvy’s experience writer, Jess Miller, agrees: “The Cash app is genius in its simplicity. The home screen consists of a large dial pad with two options: Pay, or Request. It’s simple, easy to use, and easy to find friends who use it. And, unlike other payment apps, it never shares or publishes your financial transactions. For me that makes it №1.”
This leads me to my fifth and final point that all four of these companies do quite well, which is provide transparency, trust, and respect toward their users.
5. Provide transparency, trust, and respect toward the user.
Personal information is scattered everywhere, which is frightening, especially in light of recent events. Information security has been a major part of recent news. Users entrust companies with personal information all the time, expecting it will be kept safe.
When companies screw this up, users are not shy to share their experiences. With every human able to voice their opinion on social channels, a PR nightmare becomes inevitable if this trust is betrayed.
What does all this mean for you?
By creating a product that handles the trust of the user delicately, strips out the nonsense of what other applications are already doing, focuses on a single service that works behind the scenes, and is automated and personalized, your company will stand out against competitors… at least in this millennial’s eyes.
Looking to create a more streamlined user experience for your customers? Reach out to us!
Author: Josh Peter, Senior Experience Designer
Josh is a Senior Experience Designer at Ogilvy. After pursuing his art studio degree with an emphasis in Typography and Graphic Design at the University of Northern Iowa, Josh began to focus on User Experience design with an empathetic approach towards the way humans interact with technology. When not creating things, odds are you’ll find Josh biking from one burrito to the next.
